1 [ . 

! LEAVES OF GRASS 




BY 


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WALT WHITMAN 




INTRODUCTION BY 




CARL SANDBURG 




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THE MODERN LIBRARY 


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PUBLISHERS I NEW YORK 


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Copyright, 192 1, by the modern library, inc 



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Manufactured in the United States of America 
Bound for the modern library by H. Wolff \ 



INTRODUCTION 



By Carl Sandburg 



In certain particulars Walt Whitman's book, 
"Leaves of Grass,"- stands by itself and is the 
most peculiar and noteworthy monument amid 
the work of American literature. 

First, as to style. In a large and growing 
circle of readers and critics, it is regarded as 
the most original book, the most decisively indi- 
vidual, the most sublimely personal creation in 
American literary art. 

Second, as to handling by critics and com- 
mentators. It is the most highly praised and the 
most deeply damned book that ever came from 
an American printing press as the work of an 
American writer ; no other book can compete 
with it in the number of bouquets handed it by 
distinguished bystanders on one side of the 
street and in the number of hostile and nasty 
brickbats flung by equally distinguished by- 
standers on the other side of the street. 

Third, as to personality. It is the most in- 
tensely personal book in American literature, 
living grandly to its promissory line, "who 
touches this touches a man," spilling its multi- 
tude of confessions with the bravery of a first- 
rate autobiography. 

Ill 



That was a beginning. It isn't over yet. The 
controversy yet rises and subsides. 

The best loved figure in American literature — 
by those who loved him — he is counted also the 
most heartily damned figure — by those who 
damned him. 

The most highly praised and the most roundly 
excoriated book America has produced — that is 
Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." 

"He is the poet who brought the slop-pail into 
the parlor," wrote one critic. "He is one of the 
sublime figures of all human annals, one to be 
set for companionship with Confucius, Socrates, 
and the teachers of high and sacred living," 
wrote another critic. 

"The man was mad, mad beyond the cavil of 
a doubt," wrote Max Nordau. Another Euro- 
pean critic, Gabriel Sarrin, wrote: "He is the 
apostle of the idea that man is an indivisible 
fragment of the universal Divinity." 

Walt Whitman is the only established epic 
poet of America. He is the single American fig- 
ure that both American and European artists 
and critics most often put in a class or throw 
into a category with Shakespeare, Dante, Homer. 
He is the one American writer that Emerson, 
Burroughs, John Muir, Edward Carpenter, and 
similar observers enter in their lists as having a 
size in history and an importance of utterance 
that places him with Socrates, Confucius, Lao 
Tse, and the silver-grey men of the half-worlds 
who left the Bhagavad Gita and writings known 
most often as sacred. 

In stature, pride, stride, and scope of person- 
ality, he is a challenger. He warns us to come 
with good teeth if we are to join in his menu — 
to bring along our rough weather clothes. He 
is likely any time to tip us out of the boat to see 
whether we swim or sink. And there are blanks 
tc» be filled in among his writings where he seems 

VI 



to have whispered, "I am going away now and 
I leave you alone to work it out for yourself — 
you came alone and you will have to go away 
alone." 

Walt Whitman wrote his vital passages at the 
height of America's most stormily human period 
of history. "We live in the midst of alarms ; 
anxiety beclouds the future ; we expect some 
new disaster with each newspaper we read," said 
Abraham Lincoln in the famous "Lost Speech" 
delivered the same year Walt Whitman's "Leaves 
of Grass" was first published. 

"Blood will flow . . . and brother's hand will 
be raised against brother!" was the passionate 
outcry of that same speech, which because of its 
tenor of violence was withheld from publication 
and distribution by its orator. 

In this same decade, Charles A. Dana, manag- 
ing editor of the New York Tribune, was writ- 
ing: "It may be that the day of revolutions is 
past, but, if so, why are they there in such abund- 
ance? . . . Let others give aid and comfort to 
despots. Be it ours to stand for Liberty and 
Justice, nor fear to lock arms with those who 
are called hotheads and demagogues." The 
luminous fringes of romance attaching to those 
abstractions, "Liberty and Justice," as a result 
of the American and French revolutions, were 
still in the air. Dana wrote friendly explanations 
of just what the Frenchman, Proudhon, meant 
by his thesis, "Property is Robbery." Thoreau 
was writing an essay, "On the Duty of Civil 
Disobedience." John Brown was stealing horses, 
running slaves by the underground railroad from 
slave to free soil, stocking arsenals, praying over 
strange, new projects. These all have their sig- 
nificance in showing the tint of the time spirit. 
Brook Farm, and its Utopian socialist outlooks, 
Fourier and his phalanxes of workmen, the 1848 
revolutions, these were hot topics of the time. The 

VII 



far-reaching tides and backwashes of thought 
and emotion resulting from the French and 
American revolutions, and all that weave of cir- 
cumstance touching the secession rights of 
states of the Union with its ramifications into 
chattel slavery, besides the swirl of events riding 
into that epic upheaval, the sectional war — these 
things, tangibles and intangibles, were in the air 
and the breath of men in the years when Walt 
Whitman was bringing his book to focus, getting 
ready to launch "Leaves of Grass." 

The poem of Whitman's most often published 
in public school readers is "Captain, My Cap- 
tain." His best single characteristic and authen- 
tic poem is "The Song of the Open Road," earlier 
published under the title, "The Public Road," and 
still earlier as the "Poem of the Road." 

Probably the most majestic threnody to death 
in the English language is the long piece, written 
just after the assassination of President Lin- 
coln, entitled, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard 
Bloomed." Some readers consider "Passage to 
India" the poem of profoundest meanings and 
vision. 

Among lovers of Whitman the one line that 
probably haunts most often is "Out of the 
Cradle Endlessly Rocking." The epithet most 
frequently quoted in political controversy is "the 
never-ending audacity of elected persons." Of 
hostile criticism the mos 4, vivid line is, "He 
brought the slop-pail into the parlor," a com- 
mentary antedating modern plumbing. The 
most poignantly human note struck in any one 
line is that in the poem "To a Common Prosti- 
tute," where he declares, "Not till the sun ex- 
cludes you do I exclude you." As "intriguing" 
as any title is "A Woman Waits for Me." 

The 1856 edition of "Leaves of Grass" con- 
tained titles of poems changed in later editions. 
What is now "A Song for Occupations" was 

VIII 



then the "Poem of the Daily Work of the Work- 
men and Workwomen of These States." These 
were other titles in the first edition : "Poem of 
Wonder at the Resurrection of the Wheat," 
"Poem of You, Whoever You Are," "Poem of the 
Heart of the Son of Manhattan Island," "Poem 
of the Last Explanation of Prudence," "Poem of 
Remembrances for a Girl or a Boy of These 
States," "Poem of the Child That Went Forth 
and Always Goes Forth, Forever and Forever," 
"Poem of the Propositions of Nakedness," 
"Poem of the Sayers of the Words of the Earth," 
"Poem of the Dead Young Men of Europe, the 
72d and 73d Years of These States." The long- 
est title is "Liberty Poem for Asia, Africa, 
Europe, America, Australia, Cuba, and the Archi- 
pelagoes of the Sea," later changed to the title, 
"To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire." 

Among the writings in "Leaves of Grass," 
there are poems which are masterpieces of the 
art of poetry. Not only are they to be noted as 
masterpieces of American literature; they are 
also of a piece with massive achievements of 
other countries; they call up comparison with 
the sublime chants, outcries, queries and assur- 
ances found in other literature outside of 
America. 

"Song of Myself," which in the earliest edi- 
tions was titled, "Poem of Walt Whitman, An 
American," is a specimen of the massive master- 
piece. "I do not ask who you are, that is not 
important to me," he declares in one line, and, 
"I wear my hat as I please indoors and out," in 
another line. Such lines are easily understood 
even by those who question whether it should 
classify as poetry. "What is a man anyhow? 
What am I? What are you?" or "I do not call one 
greater and one smaller," or "These are really 
the thoughts of all men in all ages, they are not 
original with me," or "I launch all men and 

IX 



women forward with me into the Unknown," 
these are further instances of the understand- 
able. 

It is among the inarticulates of the primitive, 
the abysmal, on the borders where time, mystic 
dimensions, and the sphinxes of Nowhere ask 
their riddles, it is in this territory that Walt 
Whitman gives some people a grand everlasting 
thrill, while still other people get only a headache 
and a revulsion. "Rise after rise bow the phan- 
toms behind me, Afar down I see the huge first 
Nothing, I know I was even there," he murmurs 
in "Song of Myself," "Long I was hugg'd close — 
long and long." 

"Toss, sparkles of day and dusk — toss on the 
black stems that decay in the muck, toss to the 
moaning gibberish of the dry limbs," is a speci- 
men of this borderland reporting. Or, "A child 
said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with 
full hands; How could I answer the child? I 
do not know what it is any more than he . . . 
I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord." 

Throughout "Leaves of Grass" there recurs 
often a wild soft laughter carrying the hint that 
it is impossible for a poet to tell you anything 
worth knowing unless you already know it and no 
song can be sung to you that will seem a song 
deeply worth hearing unless you have already in 
some strange, far-off fashion heard that song. 
An instance of this wild soft laughter is in the 
closing lines of "Song of Myself," where it is 
written : 



The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he com- 
plains of my gab and my loitering. 

I too am not a bit tamed. I too am untranslatable. 

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. 

X 



The last scud of day holds back for me, 

It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on 

the shadow'd wilds, 
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. 

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway 

run, 
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. 

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass 

I love, 
If you want me again look for me under your boot- 
soles. 

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean. 
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, 
And filter and fibre your blood. 

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, 
Missing me one place search another, 
I stop somewhere waiting or you. 

What he is trying to sing is a theme fluid, flow- 
ing, elusive, and so he goes out of his way to 
flip in the face those who are too sure they are 
flying the same wild sea-winds with him. "Even 
while you should think you had unquestionably 
caught me, already, behold ! you see I have 
escaped you," he writes. 

He is at a funeral looking into a coffin. A girl 
stands on her toes and joins him looking in on 
the white face in the black box. "You don't un- 
derstand this, do you, my child?" he asks. "No," 
she answers. "Neither do I," is his muttered 
and kindly rejoinder. 

The anecdote fits Whitman as feathers a duck. 
From such a poet might be expected the line, 
"I charge you forever reject those who would 
expound me." 



XI 



CONTENTS 



Introduction 

INSCRIPTIONS- 

One's-Self I Sing 

As I Ponder'd in Silence 

In Cabin'd Ships at Sea 

To Foreign Lands 

To a Historian 

To Thee Old Cause 

Eidolons 

For Him I Sing . 

When I Read the Book 

Beginning M,y Studies 

Beginners . 

To the States 

On Journeys through the Stat 

To a Certain Cantatrice 

Me Imperturbe 

Savantism 

The Ship Starting 

I Hear America Singing 

What Place is Besieged? 

Still though the One I Sing 

Shut not Your Doors 

Poets to Come 

To You . 

Thou Reader 
Starting from Paumanok 
Song of Myself 

CHILDREN OF ADAM- 

To the Garden the World . 

From Pent-up Aching Rivers 

I Sing the Body Electric 

A Woman Waits for Me 

Spontaneous Me 

One Hour to Madness and Joy 

Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd 

Ages and Ages returning at Intervals 

We Two, How long We were Fool'd 

Hymen! O Hymenee! 

1 am He that Aches with Love 
Native Moments 

Once I Pass'd through a Populous City 
I Heard You, Solemn -Sweet Pipes of the Organ 
Facing West from California's Shores 
As Adam Early in the Morning 

CALAMUS— 

In Paths Untrodden ..... 

Scented Herbage of My Breast 

Whoever You are Holding Me Now in Hand 

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XIV 



Leaves of Grass 



CALAMUS— continued 

For You, O Democracy 

These I Singing in Spring . 

Not Heaving from my Ribb'd Breast Only 

Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances 

The Base of All Metaphysics 

Recorders Ages Hence 

When I Heard at the Close of the Day 

Are You the New Person Drawn toward 

Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone 

Not Heat Flames up and Consumes 

Trickle Drops .... 

City of Orgies 

Behold this Swarthy Face 

I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growin 

To a Stranger .... 

This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful 

I Hear it was Charged against Me 

The Prairie- Grass Dividing . 

When I Peruse the Conquer'd Fame 

We Two Boys together Clinging 

A Promise to California 

Here the Frailest Leaves of Me 

No Labour-saving Machine . 

A Glimpse 

A Leaf for Hand in Hand 

Earth, My Likeness 

I Dream'd in a Dream 

What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand 

To the East and to the West 

Sometimes with One I Love 

To a Western Boy 

Fast-Anchor'd Eternal O Love! 

Among the Multitude 

O You whom I Often and Silently Come 

That Shadow My Likeness . 

Full of Life now 
Salut au Monde! . 
Song of the Open Road 
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 
Song of the Answerer 
Our Old Feuillage 
A Song of Joys . . . 

Song of the Broad-Axe . 
Song of the Exposition . 
Song of the Redwood-Tree 
A Song for Occupations 
A Song of the Rolling Earth . 
Youth, Day, Old Age, and Night 



Me! 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE- 
Song of the Universal 
Pioneers! O Pioneers! 
To You ..... 
France— the 18th Year of These States 
Myself and Mine 
Year of Meteors (1859-60) 
With Antecedents 
A Broadway Pageant 



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Contents 



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SEA-DRIFT— 

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking 

As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life 

Tears ..... 

To the Man-of-War Bird 

Aboard at a Ship's Helm 

On the Beach at Night 

The World Below the Brine 

On the Beach at Night Alone 

Song for All Seas, All Ships 

Patrolling Barnegat 

After the Sea-Ship 



BY THE ROADSIDE— 
A Boston Ballad— 1854 . 

Europe — the 72nd and 73rd Years of These States 
A Hand-Mirror 
Gods 
Germs 
Thoughts . 

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronc 
Perfections 

Me! O Life! . 
To a President 

1 Sit and Look Out 
To Rich Givers 
The Dalliance of the Eagles 
Roaming in Thought . 
A Farm Picture . 
A Child's Maze . 
The Runner 
Beautiful Women 
Mother and Babe 
Thought . 
Visor'd 
Thought . 
Gliding o'er All . 
Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour 
Thought 
To Old Age 
Locations and Times . 
Offerings 
To the States— To Identify the 16th, 17th or 18th President 



DRUM -TAPS 

First, O Songs, for a Prelude 

Eighteen Sixty-One .... 

Beat! Beat! Drums! . 

From Paumanok Starting I Fly like a Bird 

Song of the Banner at Daybreak 

Rise, O Days, from Y T our Fathomless Deeps 

Virginia — the West 

City of Ships 

The Centenarian's Story 

Cavalry Crossing a Ford 

Bivouac on a Mountain Side 

An Army Corps on the March 

By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame 



XVI 



Leaves of Grass 



DRUM -TAPS— continued 

1 Come Up from the Fields, Father . 
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night 
A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Un 
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Grey and Dim 
As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods . 
Not the Pilot . . . . . . 

Year that Trembled and Reel'd Beneath Me 

The Wound-Dresser 

Long, too Long, America 

Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun 

Dirge for Two Veterans 

Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Vo 

I Saw Old General at Bay . 

The Artilleryman's Vision 

Ethiopia Saluting the Colours 

Not Youth Pertains to Me . 

Race of Veterans 

World, Take Good Notice 

O Tan- Faced Prairie-Boy . . 

Look Down, Fair Moon 

Reconciliation .... 

How Solemn as One by One 

As I lay with My Head in Your Lap, Camerado 

Delicate Cluster 

To & Certain Civilian . 

Lo, Victress on the Peaks 

Spirit Whose Work is Done . 

Adieu to a Soldier 

Turn, O Libertad 

To the Leaven'd Soil They Trod . 



known 



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MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN- 
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd 
O Captain! My Captain! 
Huslvd be the Camps Today 
This Dust was Once the Man 
By Blue Ontario's Shore . 
Reversals «... 



278 
286 
287 
287 
288 
303 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



305 



LEAVES OF GRASS 

INSCRIPTIONS 

ONE'S-SELF I SING 

One's-self I sing, a simple separate person, 

Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. 

Of physiology from top to toe I sing, 
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for me 
Muse, 
I say the Form complete is worthier far, 
The Female equally with the Male I sing. 

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, 
Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine, 
The Modern Man I sing. 

AS I PONDER'D IN SILENCE 

As I ponder'd in silence, 

Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long, 

A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect, 

Terrible in beauty, age, and power, 

The genius of poets of old lands, 

As to me directing like flame its eyes, 

With finger pointing to many immortal songs, 

And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said, 

Knoix/st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring 

bards? 
And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles, 
The making of Perfect soldiers. 

Be it so, then I answer'd, 

/ too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater 
one than any, 



z Leave's of Grass 

Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, 
advance and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering, 

{Yet tnethinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last), 
the field the world, 

For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul, 

Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles, 

I above all promote brave soldiers. 

IN CABIN'D SHIPS AT SEA 

In cabin'd ships at sea, 

The boundless blue on every side expanding, 

With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large 

imperious waves, 
Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine, 

Where joyous, full of faith, spreading white sails, 

She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of 

day, or under many a star at night, 
By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of 

the land, be read, 
In full rapport at last. 

Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts, 

Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by 

them be said, 
The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath 

our feet, 
IV e feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion, 
The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions 

of the briny world, the liquid- flowing syllables, 
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy 

rhythm, 
The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here, 
And this is ocean's Poem. 

Then falter not, O book, fulfil your destiny, ' 

You not a reminiscence of the land alone, 

You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know 

not whither, yet ever full of faith, 
Consort to every ship that sails, sail you 1 
Bear forth to them folded my love (dear marines, for you I 

fold it here in every leaf) ; 
Speed on my book! spread your white sails, my little bark, 

athwart the imperious waves, 



Inscriptions 3 

Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to 

every sea, 
This song for mariners and all their ships. 

TO FOREIGN LANDS 

I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the 

New World, 
And to define America, her athletic Democracy, 
Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what 

you wanted. 

TO A HISTORIAN 

You who celebrate bygones, 

Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, 
the life that has exhibited itself, 

Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggre- 
gates, rulers, and priests, 

I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in 
himself in his own rights, 

Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself 
(the great pride of man in himself), 

Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be, 

I project the history of the future. 

TO THEE, OLD CAUSE 

To thee, old cause! 
Thou peerless, passionate, good cause, 
Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea, 
Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands, 
After a strange sad war, great war for thee. 

(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will 

be really fought, for thee), 
These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee. 

(A war, O soldiers, not for itself alone, 

Far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance 

in this book.) 
Thou orb of many orb's! 

Thou seething principle! thou well-kept, latent germ! thou 
centre 1 



4 Leaves of Grass 

Around the idea of thee the war revolving, 

With all its angry and vehement play of causes, 

(With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years), 

These recitatives for thee — my book and the war are one. 

Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee, 

As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself, 

Around the idea of thee. 



EIDOLONS 

I met a seer, 
Passing the hues and objects of the world, 
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense, 

To glean eidolons. 

Put in thy chants, said he, 
No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in, 
Put first before the rest as light for all and entrance-song of all, 

That of eidolons. 

Ever the dim beginning, 
Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle, 
Ever the summit and the merge at last (to surely start again), 

Eidolons! eidolons! 

Ever the mutable, 
Ever materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering, 
Ever the ateliers, the factories divine, 

Issuing eidolons. 

Lo, I or you, 
Or woman, man, or state, known and unknown, 
We ieeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build, 

But really build eidolons. 

The ostent evanescent, 
The substance of an artist's mood or savan's studies long, 
Or warrior's, martyr's, hero's toils, 

To fashion his eidolon. 

Of every human life, 
(The units gather'd, posted, not a thought, emotion, deed, left 

out), 
The whole or large or small summ'd, added up, 

In its eidolon. 



Inscriptions 5 

The old, old urge, 
Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo, newer, higher pinnacles, 
From science and the modern still impell'd, 

The old, old urge, eidolons. 

The present now and here, 
America's busy, teeming, intricate whirl, 
Of aggregate and segregate for only ihence releasing, 

To-day's eidolons. 

These with the past, 
Of vanish'd lands, of all the reigns of kings across the sea. 
Old conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors' voyages, 

Joining eidolons. 

Densities, growth, facades, 
Strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees, 
Far-born, far-dying, living long, to leave, 

Eidolons everlasting. 

Exalte, rapt, ecstatic, 
The visible but their womb of birth, 
Of orbic tendencies to shape and shape and shape, 

The mighty earth-eidolon. 

All space, all time, 
(The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns, 
Swelling, collapsing, ending, serving their longer, shorter use), 

Fill'd with eidolons only. 

The noiseless myriads, 
The infinite oceans where the rivers empty, 
The separate countless free identities, like eyesight, 

The true realities, eidolons. 

Not this the world, 
Nor these the universes, they the universes, 
Purport and end, ever the permanent life of life, 

Eidolons, eidolons. 

Beyond thy lectures learn'd professor, 
Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope, observer keen; beyond 
all mathematics, 



6 Leaves of Grass 

Beyond the doctor's surgery, anatomy, beyond the chemist 
with his chemistry, 
The entities of entities, eidolons. 



Unfix'd yet fix'd, 
Ever shall be, ever have been and are, 
Sweeping the present to the infinite future, 

Eidolons, eidolons, eidolons. 



The prophet and the bard, 
Shall yet maintain themselves, in higher stages yet, 
Shall mediate to the Modern, to Democracy, interpret yet to 
them, 

God and eidolons. 



And thee, my soul, 
Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations, 
Thy yearning amply fed at last, prepared to meet, 

Thy mates, eidolons. 

Thy body permanent, 
The body lurking there within thy body, 
The only purport of the form thou art, the real I myself. 

An image, an eidolon. 

Thy very songs not in thy songs, 
No special strains to sing, none for itself, 
But from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating, 

A round full-orb'd eidolon. 



FOR HIM I SING 

For him I sing, 

I raise the present on the past, 

(As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the 

past), 
With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws, 
To make himself by them the law unto himself. 



Inscriptions 



WHEN I READ THE BOOK 

When I read the book, the biography famous, 

And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's 

life? 
And so will some one when I am dead and gone write 

my life? 
(As if any man really knew aught of my life, 
Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing 

of my real life, 
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and 

indirections 
I seek for my own use to trace out here.) 

BEGINNING MY STUDIES 

Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much, 
The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of 

motion, 
The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love, 
The first step I say awed me and pleas'd me so much, 
I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther. 
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs. 

BEGINNERS 

How they are provided for upon the earth (appearing 

at intervals), 
How dear and dreadful they are to the earth, 
How they inure to themselves as much as to any — what a 

paradox appears their age, 
How people respond to them, yet know them not, 
How there is something relentless in their fate all times, 
How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation 

and reward, 
And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for 

the same great purchase. 

TO THE STATES 

To the States or any one of them, or any city of the 

States 
Resist much, obey little, 



8 Leaves of Grass 

Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, 
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, 
ever afterward resumes its liberty. 



ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES 

On journeys through the States we start, 

(Ay through the world, urged by these songs, 

Sailing henceforth to every land, to every sea), 

We willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all. 

We have watch'd the seasons dispensing themselves and 

passing on, 
And have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much 

as the seasons, and effuse as much? 

We dwell a while in every city and town, 

We pass through Kanada, the North-east, the vast valley ot 
the Mississippi, and the Southern States, 

We confer on equal terms with each of the States, 

We make trial of ourselves and invite men and women to hear, 

We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge 
the body and the soul, 

Dwell a while and pass on, be copious, temperate, chaste, mag- 
netic, 

And what you effuse may then return as the seasons return, 

And may be just as much as the seasons. 

TO A CERTAIN CANTATRJCE 

Here, take this gift, 

I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general, 

One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the 

progress and freedom of the race, 
Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel; 
But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as 

much as to any. 

ME IMPERTURBE 

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, 
Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irra- 
tional things, 
Imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they, 



Inscriptions 9 

Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, 
less important than I thought, 

Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Mannahatta or th< 
Tennessee, or far north or inland, 

A river man, or a man of the woods or of any farm-life of 
these States or of the coast, or the lakes or Kanada, 

Me wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for con- 
tingencies, 

To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, 
as the trees and animals do. 



SAVANTISM 

Thither as I look I see each result and glory retracing itself 
and nestling close, always obligated, 

Thither hours, months, years — thither trades, compacts, estab- 
lishments, even the most minute, 

Thither every-day life* speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates ; 

Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, 
admirant, 

<\s a father to his father going takes his children along with him. 

THE SHIP STARTING 

Lo, the unbounded sea, 

On its breast a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying even 

her moonsails, 
The pennant is flying aloft as she speeds she speeds so stately — 

below emulous waves press forward, 
They surround the ship with shining, curving motions and foam. 

I HEAR AMERICA SINGING 

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, 

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe 

and strong, 
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, 
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves 

off work, 
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the 

deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, 
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter sing* 

ing as he stands, 



?io Leaves of Grass 

The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the 
morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, 

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at 
work, or of the girl sewing or washing, 

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, 

The day what belongs to the day — at night the party of young 
fellows, robust, friendly, 

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. 

WHAT PLACE IS BESIEGED? 

What place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege? 
Lo, I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal, 
And with him horse and foot, and parks of artillery, 
And artillery-men, the deadliest that ever fired gun. 

STILL THOUGH THE ONE I SING 

Still though the one I sing, 

(One, yet of contradictions made), I dedicate to Nationality, 
l leave in him revolt (O latent right of insurrection ! O 
quenchless, indispensable fire!) 

SHUT NOT YOUR DOORS 

Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries, 

For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet 

needed most, I bring, 
Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made, 
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything, 
A book separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt by the intellect, 
But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page. 

POETS TO COME 

Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! 

Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for, 

But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater 

than before known, 
Arouse! for you must justify me. 

I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, 
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the 

darkness. 



Inscriptions it 

I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns 

a casual look upon you and then averts his face, 
Leaving it to you to prove and define it, 
Expecting the main things from you. 



TO YOU 

Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, 

why should you not speak to me? 
And why should I not speak to you? 



THOU READER 

Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I. 
Therefore, for thee the following chants. 



STARTING FROM PAUMANOK 



Starting from fish-shape Paumanok where I was bcrn, 
Well-begotten, and rais'd by a perfect mother, 
After roaming many lands, lover of populous pavements, 
Dweller in Mannahatta my city, or on southern savannas, 
Or a soldier camp'd or carrying my knapsack and gun, or a 

miner in California, 
Or rude in my home in Dakota's woods, my diet meat, my 

drink from the spring, 
Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess, 
Far from the clank of crowds intervals passing rapt and happy, 
Aware of the fresh free giver the flowing Missouri, aware of 

mighty Niagara, 
Aware of the buffalo herds grazing the plains, the hirsute and 

strong-breasted bull, 
Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers experienced, stars, rain, 

snow, my amaze, 
Having studied the mocking-bird's tones and the flight of the 

mountain-hawk, 
And heard at dawn the unrivall'd one, the hermit thrush from 

the swamp-cedars, 
Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World. 



Victory, union, faith, identity, time, 

The indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery, 

Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports. 

This then is life, 

Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes 
and convulsions. 

How curious! how real! 

Underfoot the divine soil, overhead the sun. 

12 



Starting From Paumanok 13 

See revolving the globe, 

The ancestor-continents away group'd together, 
The present and future continents north and south, with the 
isthmus between. 

See, vast trackless spaces, 
As in a dream they change, they swiftly fill, 
Countless masses debouch upon them, 

They are now cover'd with the foremost people, arts, insti- 
tutions, known. 

See, projected through time, 

For me an audience interminable. 

With firm and regular step they wend, they never stop, 
Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions, 
One generation playing its part and passing on, 
Another generation playing its part and passing on in its turn, 
With faces turn'd sideways or backward towards me to listen, 
With eyes retrospective towards me. 



Americanos ! conquerors ! marches humanitarian 1 
Foremost ! century marches ! Libertad ! masses I 
For you a programme of chants. 

Chants of the prairies, 

Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the 
Mexican sea, 

Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Min- 
nesota, 

Chants going forth from the centre from Kansas, and thence 
equi-distant, 

Shooting in pulses of fire ceaseless to vivify all. 



Take my leaves America, take them South and take them North, 
Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own 

off-spring, 
Surround them East and West, for they would surround you, 
And you precedents, connect lovingly with them, for they 

connect lovingly with you. 



14 Leaves of Grass 

I conn'd old times, 

I sat studying at the feet of the great masters, 
Now if eligible O that the great masters might return and 
study me. 

In the name of these States shall I scorn the antique? 
Why these are the children of the antique to justify it. 

5 

Dead poets, p.hilosophs, priests, 

Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since, 

Language-shapers on other shores, 

Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate, 

I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have 

left wafted hither, 
I have perused it, own it is admirable (moving awhile among it) , 
Think nothing can ever be greater, nothing can ever deserve 

more than it deserves, 
Regarding it all intently a long while, then dismissing it, 
I stand in my place with my own day here. 

Here lands female and male, 

Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world, here the 

flame of materials, 
Here spirituality the translatress, the openly-avow'd, 
The ever-tending, the finale of visible forms, 
The satisfier, after due long-waiting now advancing, 
Yes, here comes my mistress the soul. 

6 

The soul, 

Forever and forever — longer than soil is brown and solid — 
longer than water ebbs and flows. 

I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be 

the most spiritual poems, 
And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality, 
For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my 

soul and of immortality. 

I will make a song for these States that no one State may 
under any circumstances be subjected to another State, 



Starting From Paumanok 15 

And I will make a song that there shall be comity by day and by 
night between all the States, and between any two of them, 

And I will make a song for the ears of the President, full of 
weapons with menacing points, 

And behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces; 

And a song make I out of the One form'd out of all, 

The fang'd and glittering One whose head is over all, 

Resolute warlike One including and over all, 

(However high the head of any else that head is over all). 

I will acknowledge contemporary lands, 

I will trail the whole geography of the globe and salute courte. 

ously every city large and small, 
And employments! I will put in my poems that with you is 

heroism upon land and sea, 
And I will report all heroism from an American point of view. 

I will sing the song of companionship, 

I will show what alone must finally compact these, 

I believe these < are to found their own ideal of manly love, 

indicating it in me, 
I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were 

threatening to consume me, 
I will lift what has too long kept down those smouldering fires, 
I will give them complete abandonment, 
I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love, 
For who but I should understand love with all its sorrow and 

joy? 
And who but I should be the poet of comrades? 

7 
I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races, 
I advance from the people in their own spirit, 
Here is what sings unrestricted faith. 

Omnes! omnes 1 let others ignore what they may, 

I make the poem of evil also, I commemorate that part also, 

I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is — 

and I say there is in fact no evil, 
(Or if there is I say it is just as important to you, to the land 

or to me, as any thing else). 

I too, following many and follow'd by many, inaugurate a 
religion, I descend into the arena, 



16 Leaves of Grass 

(It may be I am destin'd to utter the loudest cries there, the 

winner's pealing shouts, 
Who knows? they may rise from me yet, and soar above 

everything) . 

Each is not for its own sake, 

I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for 
religion's sake. 

I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough, 
None has ever yet adored or worship'd half enough, 
None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how 
certain the future is. 

I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these States 

must be their religion, 
Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur ; 
(Nor character nor life worthy the name without religion, 
Nor land nor man or woman without religion). 



8 

What are you doing young man ? 

Are you so earnest, so given up to literature, science, art, 

amours? 
These ostensible realities, politics, points? 
Your ambition or business whatever it may be? 

It is well — against such I say not a word, I am their poet also, 
But behold! such swiftly subside, burnt up for religion's sake, 
For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame, the 

essential life of the earth, 
Any more than such are to religion. 



What do you seek so pensive and silent? 
What do you need camerado? 
Dear son do you think it is love? 

Listen, dear son — listen America, daughter or son, 
It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess, and yet 
it satisfies, it is great, 



Starting From Paumanok 17 

But there is something else very great, it makes the whole 

coincide, 
It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands 

sweeps and provides for all. 



10 

Know you, solely to drop in the earth the germs of a greater 

religion, 
The following chants each for its kind I sing. 

My comrade I 

For you to share with me two greatnesses, and a third one 

rising inclusive and more resplendent, 
The greatness of Love and Democracy, and the greatness of 

Religion. 

Melange mine own, the unseen and the seen, 

Mysterious ocean where the streams empty, 

Prophetic spirit of materials shifting and flickering around me. 

Living beings, identities now doubtless near us in the air that 

we know not of, 
Contact daily and hourly that will not release me, 
These selecting, these in hints demanded of me. 

Not he with a daily kiss onward from childhood kissing me. 
Has winded and twisted around me that which holds me to him, 
Any more than I am held to the heavens and ail the spiritual 

world, 
After what they have done to me, suggesting themes. 

such themes — equalities! O divine average 1 

Warblings under the sun, unsher'd, as now, or at noon, of 

setting, 
Strains musical flowing through ages, now reaching hither, 

1 take to your reckless and composite chords, add to them, 

and cheerfully pass them forward. 



11 

As I have walk'd in Alabama my morning walk, 
I have seen where the she-bird the mocking-bird set on her 
nest in the briers hatching her brood. 



1 8 Leaves of Grass 

I have seen the he-bird also, 

I have paus'd to hear him near at hand inflating his throat 

and joyfully singing. 
And while I paus'd it came to me that what he really sang 

for was not there only, 
Nor for his mate nor himself only, nor all sent back by the 

echoes, 
But subtle, clandestine, away beyond, 
A charge transmitted and gift occult for those being born. 

12 

Democracy! near at hand to you a throat is now inflating 

itself and joyfully singing. 

Ma femme! for the brood beyond us and of us, 

For those who belong here and those to come, 

I exultant to be ready for them will now shake out carols 

stronger and haughtier than have ever yet been heard 

upon earth. 

I will make the songs of passion to give them their way, 
And your songs outlaw'd offenders, for I scan you with 
kindred eyes, and carry you with me the same as any. 

I will make the true poem of riches, 

To earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres and 

goes forward and is not dropt by death; 
I will effuse egotism and show it underlying all, and I will be 

the bard of personality, 
And I will show of male and female that either is but the 

equal of the other, 
And sexual organs and acts ! do you concentrate in me, for I 

am determin'd to tell you with courageous clear voice to 

prove you illustrious, 
And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, 

and can be none in the future, 
And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be 

turn'd to beautiful results, 
And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than 

death, 
And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and | 

events are compact, 
And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, 

each as profound as any. 



Starting From Paumanok 19 

I will not make poems with reference to parts, 

But I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference to 

ensemble, 
And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference 

to all days, 
And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a poem but 

has reference to the soul, 
Because having look'd at the objects of the universe, I find 

there is no one nor any particle of one but has reference 

to the soul. 



13 

Was somebody asking to see the soul? 
See, your own shape and countenance, persons, substances,, 
beasts, the trees, the running rivers, the rocks, and sands. 

All hold spiritual joys and afterwards loosen them; 
How can the real body ever die and be buried? 

Of your real body and any man's or woman's real body, 
Item for item it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners 

and pass to fitting spheres, 
Carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of birth to 

the moment of death. 

Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, 
the meaning, the main concern, 

Any more than a man's substance and life or a woman's sub- 
stance and life return in the body and the soul, 

Indifferently before death and after death. 

Behold, the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern, 

and includes and is the soul ; 
Whoever you are, how superb and how divine is your body, 

or any part of itl 

14 

Whoever you are, to you endless announcements ! 

Daughter of the lands did you wait for your poet? 

Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and indicative hand ? 



20 Leaves of Grass 

Toward the male of the States, and toward the female of the 

States, 
Exulting words, words to Democracy's lands. 
Interlink'd, food-yielding lands! 
Land of coal and iron ! land of gold ! land of cotton, sugar, 

ricel 
Land of wheat, beef, pork! land of wool and hemp! land of 

the apple and the grape ! 
Land of the pastoral plains, the grass-fields of the world I 

land of those sweet-air'd interminable plateaus ! 
Land of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of adobie ! 
Lands where the north-west Columbia winds, and where the 

south-west Colorado winds ! 
Land of the eastern Chesapeake! land of the Delaware! 
Land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan! 
Land of the Old Thirteen ! Massachusetts land ! land of 

Vermont and Connecticut! 
Land of the ocean shores ! land of sierras and peaks ! 
Land of boatmen and sailors ! fisherman's land ! 
Inextricable lands ! the clutch'd together ! the passionate ones ! 
The side by side ! the elder and younger brothers ! the bony- 

limb'd 1 
The great woman's land ! the feminine ! the experienced sisters 

and the inexperienced sisters ! 
Far breath'd land ! Arctic braced ! Mexican breez'd ! the 

diverse ! the compact ! 
The Pennsylvanian ! the Virginian ! the double Carolinian ! 

all and each well-loved by me ! my intrepid nations ! O I at 

any rate include you all with perfect love ! 

1 cannot be discharged from you ! not from one any sooner 

than another ! 
O death ! O for all that, I am yet of you unseen this hour 

with irrepressible love, 
Walking New England, a friend, a traveller, 
Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples on 

Paumanok's sands, 
Crossing the prairies, dwelling again in Chicago, dwelling in 

every town, 
Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts, 
Listening to orators and oratresses in public halls, 
Of and through the States as during life, each man and 

woman my neighbour, 
The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to 

him and her. 



Starting From Paumanok 21 

The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me, and I yet with 

any of them, 
Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river, yet in my house 

of adobie, 
Yet returning eastward, yet in the Seaside State or in Maryland, 
Yet Kanadian cheerily braving the winter, the snow and ice 

welcome to me, 
Yet a true son either of Maine or of the Granite State, or the 

Narragansett Bay State, or the Empire State, 
Vet sailing to other shores to annex the same, yet welcoming 

every new brother, 
Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones from the hour 

they unite with the old ones, 
Coming among the new ones myself to be their companion 

and equal, coming personally to you now, 
Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me. 

15 

With me with firm holding, yet haste, haste on. 

For your life adhere to me, 

(I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to 

give myself really to you, but what of that? 
Must not Nature be persuaded many times?) 

No dainty dolce affettuoso I, 

Bearded, sun-burnt, grey-neck'd, forbidding, I have arrived, 

To be wrestled with as I pass for the solid prizes of the 

Universe, 
For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them. 

16 

On my way a moment I pause, 

Here for you ! and here for America ! 

Still the present I raise aloft, still the future of the States I 

harbinge glad and sublime, 
And for the past I pronounce what the air holds of the red 

aborigines. 

The red aborigines, 

Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of 
birds and animals in the woods, syllabled to us for names, 



22 Leaves of Grass 

Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chatta- 
hoochee, Kaqueta, Oronoco, 
Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla- Walla, 
Leaving such to the States they melt, they depart, charging 
the water and the land with names. 

17 

Expanding and swift, henceforth, 

Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick, and audacious, 
A world primal again, vistas of glory incessant and branching, 
A new race dominating previous ones and grander far, with 

new contests, 
New politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and 

arts. 

These, my voice announcing — I will sleep no more but arise, 
You oceans that have been calm within me ! how I feel you. 

fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and 

storms. 

18 

See, steamers steaming through my poems, 

See, in my poems immigrants continually coming and landing, 

See, in arriere, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter's hut, the 
flat-boat, the maize-leaf, the claim, the rude fen~e, and 
the backwoods village, 

See, on the one side the Western Sea and on the other the 
Eastern Sea, how they advance and retreat upon my poems 
as upon their own shores, 

See, pastures and forests in my poems — see, animals wild and 
tame — see, beyond the Kaw, countless herds of buffalo 
feeding on short curly grass, 

See, in my poems, cities, solid, vast, inland, with paved streets, 
with iron and stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles, and com- 
merce. 

See, the many-cylinder'd steam printing-press — see, the electric 
telegraph stretching across the continent, 

See, through Atlantica's depths pulses American Europe reach* 
ing, pulses of Europe duly return'd, 

See, the strong and quick locomotive as «it departs, panting, 
blowing the steam-whistle, 

See, ploughmen ploughing farms — see, miners digging mines- 
see, the numberless factories, 



Starting From Paumanok 23 

See, mechanics busy at their benches with tools — see from 

among them superior judges, philosophs, Presidents r 

emerge, drest in working dresses, 
See lounging through the shops and fields, of the States, me 

well-belov'd, close-held by day and night, 
Hear the loud echoes of my songs there — read the hints come 

at last. 

19 

O camerado close 1 O you and me at last, and us two only. 

O a word to clear one's path ahead endlessly ! 

O something ecstatic and undemonstrable ! O music wild I 

O now I triumph — and you shall also; 

O hand in hand — O wholesome pleasure — O one more desirer 

and lover i 
O to haste firm holding — to haste, haste on with me. 



SONG OF MYSELF 



I celebrate myself, and sing myself, 

And what I assume you shall assume, 

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. 

I loafe and invite my soul, 

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. 

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this 

air, 
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and 

their parents the same, 
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, 
Hoping to cease not till death. 

Creeds and schools in abeyance, 

Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never 

forgotten, 
I harbour for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, 
Nature without check with original energy. 



Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are 

crowded with perfumes, 
t breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it, 
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. 

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the 

distillation, it is odourless, 
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it, 
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised 

and naked, 
I am mad for it to be in contact with me. 

OA 



Song of Myself 25 

The smoke of my own breath, 

Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch, 

and vine, 
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the 

passing of blood and air through my lungs, 
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and 

dark-colour'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn, 
The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the 

eddies of the wind, 
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms, 
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs 

wag, 
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the 

fields and hill-sides, 
The feeling of health, the full-moon trill, the song of me rising 

from bed and meeting the sun. 

Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much ? have you reckoned 

the earth much? 
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read? 
Have you felt so proud to get at the meani g of poems? 

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the 

origin of all poems, 
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun (there are 

millions of suns left), 
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor 

look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres 

in books, 
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things 

from me, 
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself. 



I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the 

beginning and the end, 
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. 

There was never any more inception than there is now, ■* 

Nor any more youth or age than there is now, / 
And will never be any more perfection than there is now, I 

Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now. N ] 



26 Leaves of Grass 

Urge and urge and urge, 

Always the procreant urge of the world. 

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance 

and increase, always sex, 
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed 

of life. 

To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so. 

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well 

entretied, braced in the beams, 
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, 
I and this mystery here we stand. 

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is 
not my soul. 

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen, 
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn. 

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age, 

Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while 

they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself. 

Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man 

hearty and clean, 
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall 

be less familiar than the rest. 

I am satisfied — I see, dance, laugh, sing; 

As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side 

through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day 

with stealthy tread, 
Leaving me baskets cover'd with white towels swelling the 

house with their plenty, 
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realisation and scream 

at my eyes, 
That they turn from gazing after and down the road, 
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent, 
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and 

which is ahead? 



Song of Myself 27 

4 

Trippers and askers surround me, 

People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the 

ward and city I live in, or the nation, 
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old 

and new, 
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues, 
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love, 
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or 

loss or lack of money, or depressions of exaltations, 
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful 

news, the fitful events ; 
These come to me days and nights and go from me again, 
But they are not the Me myself. 

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, 
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, 
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable 

certain rest, 
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next, 
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it 

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog 

with linguists and contenders, 
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait. 



I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself 

to you, 
And you must not be abased to the other. 

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat, 
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, 

not even the best, 
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice. 

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, 
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd 

over upon me, 
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your 

tongue to my bare-stript heart, 
And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held 

my feet. 



28 Leaves of Grass 

Swiftly rose and spread around me the peace and knowledge 

that pass all the argument of the earth, 
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own 
And I know that the spirit of God i the brother of my own, 
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and tne 

women my sisters and lovers, 
And that a kelson of the creation is love, 
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields, 
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them, 
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd 'stones, elder, 

mullein, and poke-weed. 



A ^handf^' What ' S * he graSS? fetchin * h t0 me with full 

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any 
more than he. 

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful 
green stuff woven. 

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, 
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, 
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we 
may see and remark, and say Whose? 

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of 
the vegetation. 

Or I guess it is a uniform heiroglyphic, 

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, 
Growing among black folks as among white, 
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, 
1 receive them the same. 

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. 
Tenderly will I use you curling grass, 
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, 
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, 
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken 

soon out of their mothers' laps, 
And here you are the mothers' laps. 



Song of Myself 29 

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old 

mothers, 
Darker than the colourless beards of old men, 
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. 

I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, 

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths 
for nothing. 

1 wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men 

and women, 
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring 
taken soon out of their laps. 

What do you think has become of the young and old men? 
And what do you think has become of the women and children T 

They are alive and well somewhere, 

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, 

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait 

at the end to arrest it, 
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. 

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, 
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and 
luckier. 



Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? 
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I 
know it. 

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd 

babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots, 
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good, 
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good. 

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, 

I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal 

and fathomless as myself, 
(They do not know how immortal, but I know). 

Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female* 
For me those that have been boys and that love women. 



30 Leaves of Grass 

For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be 

slighted, 
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and 

the mothers of mothers, 
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears, 
For me children and the begetters of children. 

Undrape ! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded, 
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no, 
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be 
shaken away. 

8 

Tbe little one sleeps in its cradle, 

I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away 
flies with my hand. 

The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy 

hill, 
I peeringly view them from the top. 

The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom, 
I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the 
pistol has fallen. 

The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of 

the promenaders, 
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, 

the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor, 
The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls, 
The hurrahs for popular favourites, the fury of rous'd mobs, 
The flap of the curtain'd litter, a sick man inside borne to the 

hospital, 
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall, 
The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working 

his passage to the centre of the crowd, 
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes, 
What groans of over-fed or half-starv'd who fall sunstruck 

or in fits, 
What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home 

and give birth to babes, 
What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what 

howls restrain'd by decorum, 



Song of Myself 31 



Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, accept- 
ances, rejections with convex lips, 

I mind them or the show or resonance of them — I come and 1 
depart 



The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready, 
The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn 

wagon, 
The clear light plays on the brown grey and green intertinged, 
Tne armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow. 

I am there, I help, I came stretch'd atop of the load, 

I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other, 

I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy, 

And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps. 

10 

Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt, 
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee, 
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night, 
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill'd game, 
Falling asleep on the gather'd leaves with my dog and gun by 
my side. 

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle 

and scud, 
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously 

from the deck. 

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me, 
I tuck'd my. trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a 

good time; 
You should have been with us that day round the chowder, 

kettle. 

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far 

west, the bride was a red girl, 
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly 

smoking, they had moccasins to their feet and large thick 

blankets hanging from their shoulders, 
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins. 



32 Leaves of Grass 

his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held 

his bride by the hand, 
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight 

locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd to 

her feet. 
The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside, 
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile, 
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy 

and weak, 
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured 

him, 
And brought water and fiU'd a tub for his sweated body and 

bruis'd feet, 
And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave 

him some coarse clean clothes, 
And remembered perfectly well his revolving eyes and his 

awkwardness, 
And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and 

ankles ; 
He stayed with me a week before he was recuperated and 

pass'd north, 
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the corner, 

11 

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore, 
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly; 
Twenty-eignt years of womanly life and all so lonesome. 

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank, 
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the 
window. 

Which of the young men does she like the best? 
Ah, the homeliest of them is beautiful to her. 

Where are you off to lady, for I see you, 

You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room. 

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth 

bather, 
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them. 



Song of Myself 33 

The beards of the young men glistened with wet, it ran from 

their long hair, 
Little streams pass'd all over their bodies. 

An unseen hand also pass'd over their bodies, 

It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs. 

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge 

to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them, 
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and 

bending arch, 
They do not think whom they souse with spray. 

12 

The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his 

knife at the stall in the market, 
1 loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down 

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil, 
Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great hea* 
in the fire. 

From the cinder-strew'd threshold I follow their movements, 
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive 

arms, 
Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so 

sure, 
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place. 

13 

The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block 

swags underneath on its tied-over chain, 
The negro that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady 

and tall he stands pois'd on one leg on the string-piece, 
His blue shirt exposes hjs ample neck and breast and loosens 

over his hip-band, 
His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of 

his hat away from his forehead, 
The sun falls on his crispy hair and moustache, falls on the 

black of his polish'd and perfect limbs. 

I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not 

stop there, 
I go with the team also. 



34 Leaves of Grass 

In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well 

as forward sluing, 
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object 

missing, 
Absorbing all to myself and for this song. 

Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, 

what is that you express in your eyes? 
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life. 

My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant 

and day-long ramble, 
They rise together, they slowly circle around. 

i believe in those wing'd purposes, 

And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me, 
And consider green and violet and the tufted crown intentional, 
And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not 

something else, 
And the jay in the woods never studied the gamut, yet trills 

pretty well to me, 
And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me. 

14 

The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night, 
Ya-honk he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation, 
The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listening close, 
Find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky. 

The sharp-hoof'd moose of the north, the cat on the house-sill, 

the chickadee, the prairie-dog, 
The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats, 
The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her half-spread 

wings, 
I see in them and myself the same old law. 

The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections, 
They scorn the best I can do to relate them. 

I am enamour'd of growing out-doors, 

Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods, 

Of the builders and steerers of ships and the wielders of axes 

and mauls, and the drivers of horses, 
I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out. 



Song of Myself 35 

What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me, 
Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, 
Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will 

take me, 
Not asking the sky to come down to my good will, 
Scattering it freely forever. 

15 

The pure contralto sings in the organ loft, 

The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane 

whistles its wild ascending lisp, 
The married and unmarried children ride home to their 

Thanksgiving dinner, 
The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm, 
The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon 

are ready, 
The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, 
The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar, 
The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big 

wheel, 
The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafa 

and looks at the oats and rye, 
The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case, 
(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his 

mother's bedroom) ; 
The jour printer with grey head and gaunt jaws works at his 

case, 
He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the 

manuscript ; 
The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table, 
What is removed drops horribly in a pail ; 
The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard 

nods by the bar-room stove, 
The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his 

beat, the gate-keeper marks who pass, 
The young fellow drives the express-wagon (I love him, 

though I do not know him) ; 
The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race, 
The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean 

on their rifles, some sit on logs, 
Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, 

levels his piece ; 
The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee, 



36 



Leaves of Grass 



As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views 
them from his saddle, 

The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their 
partners, the dancers bow to each other, 

The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof d garret and harks to 
the musical rain, 

The Wolverine f',s traps on the creek that helps fill the 
Huron, 

The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering moc- 
casins and bead-bags for sale, 

The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half- 
shut eyes bent sideways, 

As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown 
for the shore-going passengers, 

The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister 
winds it off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots, 

The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago 
borne her first child, 

The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine 
or in the factory or mill, 

The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the re- 
porter's lead flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign- 
painter is lettering with blue and gold, 

The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at 
his desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread, 

The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers 
follow him, 

The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions, 

The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun (how the 
white sails sparkle!) 

The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would 
stray, 

The pedlar sweats with his pack on his back (the purchaser 
haggling about the odd cent) ; 

The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the 
clock moves slowly, 

The opium-eater declines with rigid head and just-open'd 

lips, 
The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy 

and pimpled neck, 
The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and 

wink to each other, 
(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you) ; 



Song of Myself 37 

The President holding a cabinet concil is surrounded by the 

great Secretaries, 
On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with 

twined arms, 
The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in 

the hold, 
The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his 

cattle. 
As the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by 

the jingling of loose change, 
The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the 

roof, the masons are calling for mortar, 
In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the labourers : 
Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is 

gather'd, it is the fourth of the Seventh-month (what 

salutes of cannon and small arms) 1 
Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the mowei 

mows, and the winter-grain falls in the ground; 
Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole 

in the frozen surface, 
The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes 

deep with his axe, 
Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or 

pecan-trees, 
Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or 

through those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those 

of the Arkansas, 
Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or 

Altamahaw, 
Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great- 
grandsons around them, 
In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers 

after their day's sport, 
The city sleeps and the country sleeps, 

The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time, 
The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband 

sleeps by his wife ; 
And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, 
And such as it is to be of these more or less I am, 
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself. 

16 

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, 
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, 



38 



Leaves of Grass 



Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, 
Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff 

that is fine, 
One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and 

the largest the same, 
A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and 

hospitable down by the Oconee I live, 
A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the 

limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth, 
A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer- 
skin leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian, 
A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, 

Badger, Buckeye; 
At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with 

fisherman off Newfoundland, 
At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and 

tacking, 
At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or 

in the Texan ranch, 
Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners 

(loving their big proportions), 
Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake 

hands and welcome to drink and meat, 
A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest 
A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons, 
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion, 
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker, 
Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest. 

I resist anything better than my own diversity, 
Breathe the air but leave plenty after me, 
And am not stuck up, and am in my place. 

(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place, 

The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in 

their place, 
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.) 

17 

These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, 

they are not original with me, 
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next 

to nothing, 



Song of Myself 39 

If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they 

are nothing, 
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are 

nothing. 
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the 

water is, 
This is the common air that bathes the globe. 

18 

With music strong I come, with my cornets and my dnims, 
I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches 
for conquer'd and slain persons. 

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? 
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same £pirj* 
in which they are won. 

I beat and pound for the dead, 

I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest Uv 
them. 

Vivas to those who have fail'd, 

And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea! 

And to those themselves who sank in the sea ! 

And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcom* 

heroes ! 
And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest 

heroes known ! 

19 

Tm's is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger, 
It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make 

appointments with all, 
I will not have a single person slighted or left away, 
The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited, 
The heavy-lipp'd slave is invited, the venerealee is invited; 
There shall be no difference between them and the rest. 

This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odour of 

hair t 
This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur G; 

yearning, 



fo Leaves of Grass 

This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face, 
This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again. 

Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? 

Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the 

mica on the side of a rock has. 
Do you take it I would astonish? 
Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering 

through the woods? 
Do I astonish more than they? 

This hour I tell things in confidence, 

I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you. 



20 

Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude; 
How is it that I extract strength from the beef I eat? 

What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you? 

All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own, 
Else it were time lost listening to me. 

I do not snivel that snivel the world over, 
That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and 
filth. 

Whimpering and truckling, fold with powders for invalids, 

conformity goes to the fourth-remov'd, 
I wear my hat as I please indoors or out. 

Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be 
monious? 

Having pried through the strata, analysed to a hair, counsell'd 

with doctors and calculated close, 
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones. 

In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley- 
corn less, 
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of theo*. 



Song of Myself 41 

I know 1 am solid and sound, 

To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow, 

All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means. 

I know I am deathless, 

I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's 

compass, 
I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a 

burnt stick at night. 

I know I am august, 

I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood, 
I see that the elementary laws never apologise, 
(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house 
by, after all). 

I exist as I am, that is enough, 

If no other in the world be aware I sit content, 

And if each and all be aware I sit content. 

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is 

myself, 
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or 

ten million years, 
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can 

wait. 

My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite, 
I laugh at what you call dissolution, 
And I know the amplitude of time. 



21 

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, 
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell 

are with me, 
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I trans- 
late into a new tongue. 

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, 
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man. 
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men. 



42 Leaves of Grass 



I chant the chant of dilation or pride, 

We have had ducking and deprecating about enough, 

I show that size is only development. 

Have you outstript the rest? are you the President? 

It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and 

still pass on. 
I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, 
I call to the earth and sea half -held by the night. 

Press close bare-bosom'd night — press close magnetic nourish- 
ing night! 
Night of south winds — night of the large few stars 
Still nodding night— mad naked summer night. 

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth 1 
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees ! 
Earth of departed sunset — earth of the mountains misty-topt ! 
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with 

blue! 
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river! 
Earth of the limpid grey of clouds brighter and clearer for my 

sake! 
Far-swooping elbow'd earth — rich apple-blossm'd earth ! 
Smile, for your lover comes. 

Prodigal, you have given me love — therefore I to you give love ! 

unspeakable passionate love. 

22 

You sea! I resign myself to you also— I guess what you mean, 

1 behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers, 
I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me, 

We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of 

sight of land, 
Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse, 
Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you. 

Sea of streicn'd ground-swells, 
Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths, 
Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell'd yet always-ready 
graves, 



Song of Myself 43 

Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea, 

I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases. 

Partaker of influx and efflux I, extoller of hate and conciliation, 
Extoller of amies and those that sleep in each other's arms. 

1 am he attesting sympathy, 

(Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the 
house that supports them?) 

I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be 
the poet of wickedness also. 

What blurt is this about virtue and about vice? 

Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stan<! 

indifferent, 
My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait, 
I moisten the roots of all that has grown. 

Did you fear some scrofula out of* the unflagging pregnancy? 
Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work'd over and 
rectified? 

I find one side a balance and the antipodal side a balance, 

Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine, 

Thoughts and deeds of the present our rouse and early start. 

This minute that comes to me over the past decillions, 
There is no better than it and now. 

What behaves well in the past or behaves well to-day is not 

such a wonder, 
The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean 

man or an infidel. 

23 

Endless unfolding of words of ages! 

And mine a word of the modern, the word En-Masse. 

A word of the faith that never balks, 

Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Tini* 
absolutely. 



44 Leaves of Grass 

It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all, 
That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all. 

A I accept Reality and dare not question it, 
Materialism first and last imbuing. 

Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration! 
Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac, 
This is the lexicographer, this the chemist, this made a gram- 
mar of the old cartouches, 

These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas, 
This is the geologist, this works with the scalpel, and this is a 
mathematician. 

Gentlemen, to you the first honours always ! 

Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling, 

I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling. 

Less the reminders of properties told my words, 

And more the reminders they of life untold, and of freedom 

and extrication, 
And make short account of neuters and geldings, and favour 

men and women fully equipt, 
And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives and them 

that plot and conspire. 

24 

Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, 

Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking, and breeding, 

No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart 

from them, 
No more modest than immodest. 

Unscrew the locks from the doors ! 

Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs ! 

Whoever degrades another degrades me, 

And whatever is done or said returns at last to me. 

Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me the 
current and index. 



Song of Myself 45 

I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy, 
By God ! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their 
counterpart of on the same terms. 

Through me many long dumb voices, 

Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves, 

Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs, 

Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion, 

And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and 

of the father-stuff, 
And of the rights of them the others are down upon, 

Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised, 
Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung. 

Through me forbidden voices, 

Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil, 

Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd. 

I do not press my fingers across my mouth, 

I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and 

heart, 
Copulation is no more rank to me than death is. 

I believe in the flesh and the appetites, 

Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag 
of me is a miracle. 

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch 

or am touch'd from, 
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer, 
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds. 

If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the 

spread of my own body, or any part of it, 
Translucent mould of me it shall be you! 
Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you! 
Firm masculine colter it shall be you! 
Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you! 
You my rich blood ! your milky stream pale strippings of tvy 

life! 
Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you! 
My brain it shall be your occult convolutions 1 



4 6 



Leaves of Grass 



Root of wash'd sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of 

guarded duplicate eggs ! it shall be you ! 
Mix'd tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you ! 
Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you! 
Sun so generous it shall be you ! 

Vapours lighting and shading my face it shall be you! 
You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you ! 
Winds whose salt-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you ! 
Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in 

my winding paths, it shall be you ! 
Hands I have taken, face I have kiss'd, mortal I have ever 

touch'd, it shall be you. 

I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious, 

Each moment and whatver happens thrills me with joy, 

I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of 

my faintest wish, 
Nor the cause of friendship I emit, nor the cause of the 

friendship I take again. 

That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be, 
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the 
metaphysics of books. 

To behold the day -break! 

The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows, 

The air tastes good to my palate. 

Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols silently rising, 

freshly exuding, 
Scooting obliquely high and low. 

Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs, 
Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven. 

The earth by the sky stayed with, the daily close of their 

junction, 
The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over my head, 
The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master ! 

25 

Dazzling and tremendous, how quick the sun-rise would 

kill me, 
If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me. 



Song of Alys:lf 47 

We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun, 
We found our own, O my soul, in the calm and cool of the 
daybreak. 

My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach, 
With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes 
of worlds. 

Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, 

It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, 

Walt, you contain enough, why don't you let it out then? 

Come now I will not be tantalised, you conceive too much of 

articulation, 
Do you not know, O speech, how the buds beneath you are 

folded? 
Waiting in gloom, protected by frost, 
The dirt receding before my prophetical screams, 
I underlying causes to balance them at last, 
My knowledge my live parts, it keeping tally with the meaning 

of all things, 
Happiness (which whoever hears me let him or her set om 

in search of this day). 

My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what 
I really am, 

Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me, 

I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you. 

Writing and talk do not prove me, 

I carry the plenum of proof and everything else in my face, 

With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the sceptic. 



26 

N T ow I will do nothing but listen, 

To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute 
toward it. 

I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of 

flames, clack of sticks, cooking my meals, 
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice, 



48 Leaves of Grass 

I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused, or 
following, 

Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the 
day and night, 

Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh 
of work-people at their meals, 

The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the 
sick, 

The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pro- 
nouncing a death-sentence, 

The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, 
the refrain of the anchor-lifters, 

The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift- 
streaking engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles 
and colour'd lights, 

The steam whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching 
cars, 

The slow march play'd at the head of the association march- 
ing two and two 

(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with 
black muslin). 

I hear the violoncello ('tis the young man's heart's complaint), 
I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears, 
It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast. 

I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera, 
Ah, this indeed is music — this suits me. 

A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me, 

The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full. 

I hear the train'd soprano (what work with hers is this?) 

The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies, 

It wrenches such ardours from me I did not know I possess'd 

them, 
It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick'd by the 

indolent waves, 
I am cut by bitter and angry hair, I lose my breath, 
Steep'd amid honey'd morphine, my windpipe throttled it) 

fakes of death, 
At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles, 
And that we call Being. 



Song of Myself 49 

27 

To be in any form, what is that? 

(Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back 

thither), 
If nothing lay more develop'd the quahaug in its callous shell 

were enough. 

Mine is no callous shell, 

I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop, 

They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me. 

I merely stir, press, feel with my lingers, and am happy, 
To touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I 
can stand. 

28 

Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity, 
Flames and ether making a rush for my veins, 
Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them, 
My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is 

hardly different from myself, 
On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs, 
Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip, 
Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial, 
Depriving me of my best as for a purpose, 
Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist, 
Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and 

pasture-fields, 
Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away, 
They bribed to swap off with touch and go and graze at the 

edges of me, 
No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my 

anger, 
Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them a while, 
Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me. 

The sentries desert every other part of me, 

They have left me helpless to a red marauder, 

They all come to the headland to witness and assist against me. 

I am given up by traitors, 

I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the 
greatest traitor, 



jjo Leaves of Grass 

I went myself first to the headland, my own hands carried me 
there. 

You villain touch! what ar^ you doing? my breath is tight in 

its throat, 
Unclench your floodgates, you are too much for me. 

29 

Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath'd, hooded, sharp-tooth'd 

touch 1 
Did it make you ache so, leaving me? 

Parting track'd by arriving, perpetual payment of perpetual 

loan, 
Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward. 

Sprouts take and accumulate, stand by the curb prolific and 

vital, 
Landscapes projected masculine, full-sized and golden. 

30 

All truths wait in all things, 

They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it, 

They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon, 

The insignificant is as big to me as any, 

(What is less or more than a touch?) 

Logic and sermons never convince, 

The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul. 

(Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so, 
Only what nobody denies is so.) 

A minute and a drop of me settle my brain, 

I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps, 

And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman, 

And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for 

each other, 
And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until 

it becomes omnific, 
And until one and all shall delight us, and we them. 



Song of Myself 51 

31 

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of 

the stars, 
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and 

the egg of the wren, 
And the tree-load is a chef-d'eeuvre for the highest, 
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven, 
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, 
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any 

statue, 
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. 

I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits, 

grains, esculent roots. 
And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over, 
And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons, 
But call anything back again when I desire it. 

In vain the speeding or shyness, 

In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my 

approach, 
In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder'd bones, 
In vain objects stand leagues off and assume manifold shapes, 
In vain the ocean settling in hollows and the great monsters 

lying low, 
In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky, 
In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs, 
In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods, 
In vain the razor-bill'd auk sails far north to Labrador, 
I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the clifr 



32 

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid 

and self-contain'd, 
I stand and look at them long and long. 

They do not sweat and whine about their condition, 
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins 
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, 
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania 
of owning things, 



52 Leaves of Grass 

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thou* 

sands of years ago, 
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. 

So they show their relations to me and I accept them, 
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in 
their possession. 

I wonder where they get those tokens, 

Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them? 
Myself moving forward then and now and forever, 
Gathering and showing more always and with velocity, 
Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them, 
Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers, 
Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on 
brotherly terms. 

A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my 

caresses, 
Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears, 
Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground, 
Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly 

moving. 

His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him, 
His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around 
and return. 

I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion, 

Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them? 

Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you. 

33 

Space and Time ! now I see it is true, what I guess'd at, 
What I guess'd when I loaf'd on the grass, 
What I guess'd while I lay alone in my bed, 
And again as I walk'd the beach under the paling stars of 
the morning. 

My ties and ballasts leave me, my elbows rest in sea-gaps, 
I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents, 
I am afoot with my vision. 



Song of Myself 53 



By the city's quadrangular houses — in log huts, camping with 

lumbermen, 
Along the ruts of the turnpike, along the dry gulch and 

rivulet bed, 
Weeding my onion-patch or hoeing rows of carrots and pars- 
nips, crossing savannas, trailing in forests, 
Prospecting, gold-digging, girdling the trees of a new purchase, 
Scorch'd ankle-deep by the hot sand, hauling my boat down 

the shallow river, 
Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead, 

where the buck turns furiously at the hunter, 
W r here the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock, where 

the otter is feeding on fish, 
Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou, 
Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey, where 

the beaver pats the mud with his paddle-shaped tail; 
Over the growing sugar, over the yellow-flower'd cotton plant, 

over the rice in its low moist field, 
Over the sharp-peak'd farm house, with its scallop'd scum and 

slender shoots from the gutters, 
Over the western persimmon, over the long-leav'd corn, over 

the delicate blue-flower flax, 
Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer 

there with the rest, 
Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in 

the breeze; 
Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up, holding on 

by low scragged limbs, 
Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the 

leaves of the brush, 
Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheat- 
lot, 
Where the bat flies in the Seventh-month eve, where the 

great goldbug drops through the dark, 
Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and 

flows to the meadow, 
Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous 

shuddering of their hides, 
Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, where andirons 

straddle the hearth-slab, where cobwebs fall in festoons 

from the rafters; 
Where trip-hammers crash, where the press is whirling its 

cylinders, 



54 Leaves of Grass 

Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under 
its ribs, 

Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft (floating in it 
myself and looking composedly down), 

Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose, where the heat 
hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand, 

Where the she-whale swims with her calf and never forsakes it, 

Where the steamship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke, 

Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black ship out of the 
w^ter, 

Where the half-burn'd brig is riding on unknown currents, 

Where shells grow to her slimy deck, where the dead are cor- 
rupting below; 

Where the dense-starr'd flag is borne at the head of the 
regiments, 

Approaching Manhattan up by the long-stretching island, 

Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my 
countenance, 

Upon a door-step, upon the horse-block of hard wood outside, 

Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs or a good 
game of base-ball, 

At the festivals, with blackguard gibes, ironical licence, bull- 
dances, drinking, laughter, 

At the cider-mill tasting the sweets of the brown mash, 
sucking the juice through a straw, 

At apple-peelings wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find, 

At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, house- 
raisings ; 

Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles, 
screams, weeps, 

Where the hayrick stands in the barnyard, where the drystalks 
are scatter'd, where the brood-cow waits in the hovel, 

Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, where the 
stud to the mare, where the cock is treading the hen, 

Where the heifers browse, where geese nip their food with 

short jerks, 
Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitle>s and 

lonesome prairie, 
Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square 

miles far and near, 
Where the humming-bird shimmers, where the neck of the 

long-lived swan is curving and winding, 



Song of Myself 55 

Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she ; laugh 5 
her near-human laugh, 

Where bee-hives range on a grey bench in the garden half hid 
by the high weeds, f 

Where band-neck'd partridges roost in a ring on the ground 
with their heads out, 

Where burial coaches enter the arch'd gates of a cemetery, 

Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled 
trees, 

Where the yellow-crown'd heron comes to the edge of the 
marsh at night and feeds upon small crabs, 

Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon, 

Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the walnut- 
tree over the well, 

Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired 
leaves, 

Through the salt-lick or orange glade, or under conical firs, 

Through the gymnasium, through the curtain'd saloon, through 
the office or public hall; 

Pleas'd with the native and pleas'd with the foreign, pleas'd 
with the new and old, 

Pleas'd with the homely woman as well as the handsome, 

Pleas'd with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and 
talks melodiously, 

Pleas'd with the tune of the choir of the whitewash'd church, 

Pleas'd with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist 
preacher, impress'd seriously at the camp-meeting; 

Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole fore- 
noon, flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate glass, 

Wandering the same afternoon with my face turned up to 
the clouds, or down a lane or along the beach, 

My right and left arms around the sides of two friends, and 
I in the middle; 

Coming home with the silent and dark-cheek'd bush-boy (be- 
hind me he rides at the drape of the day), 

Far from the settlements studying the print of animals' feet, 
or the moccasin print, 

By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish 
patient, 

Nigh the coffin'd corpse when all is still, examining with a 
candle ; 

Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure, 

Hurrying with the modern crowd as eager and fickle as any* 

Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him, 



56 



Leaves of Grass 



Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from 

me a long while, 
Walking the old hills of Judaea with the beautiful gentle God 

by my side, 
Speeding through space, speeding through heaven and the stars, 
Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring, and the 

diameter of eighty thousand miles, 
Speeding with tail'd meteors, throwing fire-balls like the rest, 
Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in 

its belly, 
Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning, 
Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing, 
I tread day and night such roads. 

I visit the orchards of spheres and look at the product, 

And look at quintillions ripen'd and look at quintillions green. 

I fly those flights of a fluid and swallowing soul, 
My course runs below the soundings of plummets. 

I help myself to material and immaterial, 

No guard can shut me off, no law prevent me. 

I anchor my ship for a little while only, 

My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns 
to me. 

I go hunting polar furs and the seal, leaping chasms with a 
pike-pointed staff, clinging to topples of brittle and blue. 

I ascend to the foretruck. 

I take my place late at night in the crow's-nest, 

We sail the arctic sea, it is plenty light enough, 

Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the won- 
derful beauty, 

The enormous masses of ice pass me and I pass them, the 
scenery is plain in all directions, 

The white-topt mountains show in the distance, I fling out my 
fancies toward them, 

We are approaching some great battle-field in which we are 
soon to be engaged, 

We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment, we pass 
with still feet and caution, 



Song of Myself 57 

Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruin'd city, 
The blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living 
cities of the globe. 

I am a free companion, I bivouac by invading watchfires, 
I turn the bridegroom out of bed and stay with the bride 

myself, 
I tighten her all night to my thighs and. lips. 

My voice is the wife's voice, the screech by the rail of the 

stairs, 
They fetch my man's body up dripping and drowned. 

I understand the large hearts of heroes, 

The courage of present times and all times, 

How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the 

steamship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm, 
How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was 

faithful of days and faithful of nights, 
And chalked in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we 

will not desert you; 
How he follow'd with them and tack'd with them three days 

and would not give it up, 
How he saved the drifting company at last, 
How the lank loose-gown'd women look'd when boated from 

the side of their prepared graves, 
How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the 

sharp-lipp'd unshaven men ; 
All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes 

mine, 
I am the man, I suffer'd, I was there. 

The disdain and calmness of martyrs, 

The mother of old, condemn'd for a witch, burnt with dry 

wood, her children gazing on, 
The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence, 

blowing, cover'd with sweat, 
The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, the 

murderous buckshot and the bullets, 
All these I feel or am. 

I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs, 
Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the 
marksmen, 



58 



Leaves of Grass 



I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with 

the ooze of my skin, 
I fall on the weeds and stones, 
The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close, 
Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me violently over the head with 

whip-stocks. 

Agonies are one of my changes of garments, 
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself be- 
come the wounded person, 
My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe. 

I am the mash'd fireman with breast-bone broken, 

Tumbling walls buried me in their debris, 

Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my 

comrades, 
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels, 
They have clear'd the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth. 

I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is 

for my sake, 
Painless after all I lie exhausted but not so unhappy, 
White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are 

bared of their fire-caps, 
The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches. 

Distant and dead resuscitate, 

They show as the dial or move as the hands of me, I am the 
clock myself. 

I am an old artillerist,. I tell of my fort's bombardment, 
1 am there again. 

Again the long roll of the drummers, 
Again the attacking cannon, mortars, 
Again to my listening ears the cannon responsive. 

I take part, I see and hear the whole, 
The cries, curses, roar, the plaudits for well-aim'd shots, 
The ambulanza slowly passing trailing its red drip, 
Workmen searching after damages, making indispensable 

repairs, 
The fall of grenades through the rent roof, the fan-shaped 

explosion, 



Song of Myself 59 

The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air. 

Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general, he furiously 
waves with his hand, 

He gasps through the clot, Mind not me — mind — the entrench- 
ments. 

34 

Now I tell what I knew in Texas in my early youth, 
(I tell not the fall of Alamo, 
Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo, 
The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo), 
'Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and 
twelve young men. 

Retreating they had formed in a hollow square with their 

baggage for breastworks, 
Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy's, nine times 

their number, was the price they took in advance, 
Their colonel was wounded and their ammuntion gone, 
They treated for an honourable capitulation, receiv'd writing 

and seal, gave up their arms and march'd back prisoners 

of war. 

They were the glory of the race of rangers, 

Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship, 

Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate, 

Beared, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters, 

Not a single one over thirty years of age. 

The second First-day morning they were brought out in 

squads and massacred, it was beautiful early summer, 
The work commenced about five o'clock and was over by eight. 

None obey'd the command to kneel, 

Some made a mad and helpless rush, some stood stark and 

straight, 
A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart, the living and 

dead lay together, 
The maim'd and mangled dug in the dirt, the new-comers saw 

them there. 
Some half-kill'd attempted to crawl away, 
The?e were despatch'd with bayonets or batter'd with the 

blunts of muskets, 



60 Leaves of Grass 

A youth not seventeen years old seized his assassin till two 

more came to release him, 
The three were all torn and cover'd with the boy's blood. 

At eleven o'clock began the burning of the bodies ; 
That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve 
young men. 



35 



Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight? 

Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars? 
List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told 
it to me. 

Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you (said he), 

His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or 

truer, and never was and never will be; 
Along the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us. 

We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch'd, 
My captain lash'd fast with his own hands. 

We had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water, 
On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first 
fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead. 

Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark, 

Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the 
gain, and five feet of water reported, 

The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after- 
hold to give them a chance for themselves. 

The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the 

sentinels, 
They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to 
trust. 

Our frigate takes fire, 

The other asks if we demand quarter? 

If our colours are struck and the fighting done? 



Song of Myself 61 

Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain, 
We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun 
our part of the fighting. 

Only three guns are in use, 

One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's 

mainmast, 
Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry 

and clear his decks. 

The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially 

the main-top, 
They hold out bravely during the whole of the action. 

Not a moment's cease, 

The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the 
powder-magazine. 

One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thoughf 
we are sinking. 

Serene stands the little captain, 

He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low, 

His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns. 

Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrendei 
to us. 

26 

Stretch'd and still lies the midnight, 

Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness, 

Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to 
f he one we have conquer'd, 

The captain on the 2quarter-deck coldly giving his orders 
through a countenance white as a sheet, 

Near by the corpse of the child that serv'd in the cabin, 

The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and care- 
fully curl'd whiskers, 

The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and 
below, 

The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty, 

Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of 
flesh upon the masts and spars, 

Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe 
of waves, 



62 Leaves of Grass 

Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong 

scent, 
A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining, 
Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields 

by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors, 
The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw>> 
Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and 

long, dull, tapering groan. 
These so, these irretrievable. 

37 

You laggards there on guard ! look to your arms ! 
In at the conquer'd doors they crowd ! I am possess'd ! 
Embody all presences outlaw'd or suffering, 
See myself in prison shaped like another man, 
And feel the dull unintermitted pain. 

For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and 

keep watch, 
It is I let out in the morning and barr'd at night. 

Not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but I am handcuff 'd 

to him and walk by his side, 
<I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one with 

sweat on my twitching lips). 

Not a youngster is taken for larceny but I go up too, and am 
tried and sentenced. 

Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the 
last gasp, 

My face is ash-colour'd, my sinews gnarl, away from me peo- 
ple retreat. 

Askers embody themselves in me and I am embodied in them, 
I project my hat, sit shame- faced, and beg. 

38 

Enough! enough! enough! 

Somehow I have been stunn'd. Stand back! 

Give me a little time beyond my caff 'd head, slambers, dreams 

gaping, 
I discover myself on the verge of a asaal mistake. 



Song of Myself 63 

That I could forget the mockers and insults! 

That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the 

bludgeons and hammers! 
That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion 

and bloody crowning. 

I remember now, 

I resume the overstayed fraction, 

The grave of rock multiplies what has been confided to it, or 

to any graves, 
Corpses rise, gashes heal, fastenings roll from me. 

I troop forth replenish'd with supreme power, one of an aver- 
age unending procession, 
Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines, 
Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth, 
The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands 
of years. 

Eleves, I salute you ! come forward ! 

Continue your annotations, continue your questionings. 



39 

The friendly and flowing savage, who is he? 

Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it? 

Is he some Southwesterner rais'd out-doors? is he Kanadian? 
Is he from the Mississippi country? Iowa, Oregon, California? 
The mountains? prairie-life, bush-life? or sailor from the sea? 

Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him, 
They desire he should like them, touch them, speak to them, 
stay with them. 

Behaviour lawless as snow-flakes, words simple as grass, un- 

comb'd head, laughter, and naivete, 
Slow-stepping feet, common features, common modes and 

emanations, 
They descend in new forms from the tips of his fingers, 
They are wafted with the odour of his body or breath, they 

fly out of the glance of his eyes. 



64 Leaves of Grass 

40 

Flaunt of the sunshine, need not your bask — lie over ! 
You light surfaces only, I force surfaces and depths also. 

Earth! you seem to look for something at my hands, 
Say, old top-knot, what do you want? 

Man or woman, I might tell how I like you, but cannot, 
And might tell what it is in me and what it is in you, but 

cannot, 
And might tell that pining I have, that pulse of my nights and 

days. 

Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, 
When I give I give myself. 

You there, impotent, loose in the knees, 

Open your scarf'd chops till I blow grit within you, 

Spread your palms and lift the flaps of your pockets, 

I am not to be denied, I compel, I have stores plenty and to 

spare, 
And anything I have I bestow. 

I do not ask you who you are, that is not important to me, 
You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold 
you. 

To cotton-field drudge or cleaner of privies I lean, 

On his right cheek I put the family kiss, 

And in my soul I swear I never will deny him. 

On women fit for conception I start bigger and nimbler babes, 
(This day I am jetting the stuff of far more arrogant 
republics). 

To any one dying, thither I speed and twist the knob of the 

door, 
Turn the bed-clothes toward the foot of the bed, 
Let the physician and the priest go home. 

I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will, 
O despairer, here is my neck, 



Song of Myself 65 

By God, you shall not go down! hang your whole weight 
upon me. 

I dilate with you tremendous breath, i buoy you up, 
Every room of the house do I fill with an arm'd force, 
Lovers of me, bafflers of graves. 

Sleep — I and they keep guard all night, 
No doubt, not decease shall dare to lay finger upon you, 
I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you to myself, 
And when you rise in the morning you will find what I tell 
you is so. 

41 

I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs,, 
And for strong upright men I bring yet more needed help. 

I heard what was said of the universe, 

Heard it and heard it of several thousand years; 

It is middling well as far as it goes — but is that all? 

Magnifying and applying come I, 
Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters, 
Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah, 
Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grand- 
son, 
Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha, 
In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the 

crucifix engraved, 
With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and 

image, 
Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more, 
Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days, 
(They bore mites as for unfledg'd birds who have now to rise 

and fly and sing for themselves), 
Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself, 

bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see, 
Discovering as much or more in a f ramer framing a house, 
Putting higher claims for him in there with his roll'd-up 

sleeves driving the mallet and chisel, 
Not objecting to special revelations, considering a curl of 

smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious 

as any revelation, 



66 Leaves of Grass 

Laos ahold of fire-engines and hook-and-ladder ropes no less 

to me than the gods of the antique wars, 
Minding their voices peal through the crash of destruction, 
Their brawny limbs passing safe over charr'd laths, their 

white foreheads whole and unhurt out of the flames ; 
By the mechanic's wife with her babe at her nipple interceding 

for every person born, 
Three scythes at harvest whizzing in a row from three lusty 

angels with shirts bagg'd out at their waists, 
The snag-tooth'd hostler with red hair redeeming sins past 

and to come, 
Selling all he possesses, travelling on foot to fee lawyers fof 

his brother and sit by him while he is tried for forgery ; 
What was strewn in the amplest strewing the square rod about 

me, and not filling the square rod then, 
The bull and the bug never worshipp'd half enough, 
Dung and dirt more admirable than was dream'd, 
The supernatural of no account, myself waiting my time to 

be one of the supremes, 
The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good 

as the best, and be as prodigious; 
By my life-lumps! beco'.ning already a creator, 
Putting myself here and now to the ambush'd womb of the 

shadows. 

42 

A call in the midst of the crowd, 

My own voice, orotund, sweeping, and final. 

Come, my children, 

Come, my boys and girls, my women, household and intimates, 
Now the performer launches his nerve, he has pass'd his pre- 
lude on the reeds within. 

Easily written loose-finger'd chords — I feel the thrum of your 
climax and close. 

My head slues round on my neck, 

Music rolls, but not from the organ, 

Folks are around me, but they are no household of mine. 

Ever the hard unsunk ground, 

Ever the eaters and drinkers, ever the upward and downward 
sun, ever the air and the ceaseless tides. 



Song of Myself 67 

Ever myself and my neighbours, refreshing, wicked, real, 
Ever the old inexplicable query, ever that thorn'd thumb, that 

breath of itches and thirsts, 
Ever the vexer's hoot! hoot! till we find where the sly one 

hides and bring him forth, 
Ever love, ever sobbing liquid of life, 
Ever the bandage under the chin, ever the trestles of death. 

Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking, 

To feed the greed of the belly the brains liberally spooning, 

Tickets buying, taking, selling, but in to the feast never once 

going, 
Many sweating, ploughing, thrashing, and then the chaff for 

payment receiving, 
A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming. 

This is the city and I am one of the citizens, 

Whatever interests the rest interests me, politics, wars, mar- 
kets, newspapers, schools, 

The mayor and councils, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories, 
stocks, stores, real estate, and personal estate. 

The little plentiful mannikins skipping around in collars and 

tail'd coats, 
I am aware who they are (they are positively not worms or 

fleas), 
I acknowledge the duplicates of myself, the weakest and 

shallowest is deathless with me, 
What I do and say the same waits for them, 
Every thought that flounders in me the same flounders in them. 

I know perfectly well my own egotism, 

Know my omnivorous lines and must not write any less, 

And would fetch you, whoever you are, flush with myself. 

Not words of routine this song of mine, 

But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet nearer bring; 

This printed and bound book — but the printer and the print- 
ing-office boy? 

The well-taken photographs — but your wife or friend dose 
and solid in your arms? 

The black ship mail'd with iron, her mighty guns in her tur- 
rets — but the pluck of the captain and engineers? 



68 Leaves of Grass 

In the houses the dishes and fare and furniture — but the host 

and hostess, and the look out of their eyes? 
The sky up there— yet here or next door, or across the way? 
The saints and sages in historj — but you yourself? 
Sermons, creeds, theology— but the fathomless human brain, 
And what is reason? and what is love? and what is life? 

43 

I do not despise you priests, all time, the world over, 

My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths, 

Enclosing worship ancient and modern and all between ancient 
and modern, 

Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thou- 
sand years, 

Waiting responses from oracles, honouring the gods, saluting 
the sun, 

Making a fetish of the first rock or stump, powowing with 
sticks in the circle of obis, 

Helping the llama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the 
idols, 

Dancing yet through the streets in a phallic procession, rapt 
and austere in the woods a gymnosophist, 

Drinking mead from the skull-cup, to Shastas and Vedas 
admirant, minding the Koran, 

Walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and 
knife, beating the serpent-skin drum, 

Accepting the Gospels, accepting him that was crucified, know- 
ing assuredly that he is divine, 

To the mass kneeling or the puritan's prayer rising, or sitting 
patiently in a pew, 

Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis or waiting dead-like 
till my spirit arouses me, 

Looking forth on pavement and land, or outside of pavement 
and land, 

Belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits. 

One of that centripetal and centrifugal gang I turn and talk 
like a man leaving charges before a journey. 

Down-hearted doubters dull and excluded, 

Frivolous, sullen, moping, angry, affected, dishearten'd, athe- 
istical, 

I know every ore of you, I know the sea of torment, doubt, 
despair, and unbelief. 



Song of Mvself 69 

How the flukes slash! 

How they contort rapid as lightning, with spasms and spouts 
of blood ! 

Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers, 
I take my place among you as much as among any, 
The past is the push of you, me, all, precisely the same, 
And what is yet untried and afterwards is for you, me, all 
precisely the same. 

I do not know what is untried and afterward, 

But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail. 

Each who passes is consider'd, each who stops is consider'd, 
not a single one can it fail. 

It cannot fail the young man who died and was buried, 
Nor the young woman who died and was put by his side, 
Nor the little child that peep'd in at the door, and then drew 

back and was never seen again, 
Nor the old man who has lived without purpose, and feels it 

with bitterness worse than gall, 
Nor him in the poor house tubercled by rum and the bad 

disorder, 
Nor the numberless slaughter'd and wreck'd, nor the brutish 

koboo call'd the ordure of humanity, 
Nor the sacs merely floating with open mouths for food to 

slip in, 
Nor anything in the earth, or down in the oldest graves 

of the earth, 
Nor anything in the myriads of spheres, nor the myriads of 

myriads that inhabit them, 
Nor the present, nor the least wisp that is known. 



44 

It is time to explain myself — let us stand up. 

What is known I strip away, 

I launch all men and women forward with me into the 
Unknown. 

The clock indicates the moment— but what does eternity 
indicate? 



jo Leaves of Grass 

We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers, 
There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them. 

Births have brought us richness and variety, 

And other births will bring us richness and variety. 

I do not call one greater and one smaller, 

That which fills its period and place is equal to any. 

Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, 

my sister? 
I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me, 
All has been gentle with me, I keep no account of lamentation, 
(What have I to do with lamentation?) 

I am an acme of things accomplished, and I an encloser of 
things to be. 

My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs, 

On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between 

the steps, 
All below duly travell'd, and still I mount and mount. 

Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me, 

Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even 

there, 
I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic 

mist, 
And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon. 

Long I was hugg'd close — long and long. 

Immense have been the preparations for me, 
Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me. 

Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cneerful 

boatmen. 
For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings, 
They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. 

Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me, 
My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it. 

For it the nebula cohered to an orb, 
The long slow strata piled to rest it on, 
Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, 



Song of Myself 71 

Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and de- 
posited it with care. 

All forces have been steadily employ 'd to complete and de- 
light me, 
Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul. 

45 

O span of youth! ever-push'd elasticity! 

manhood, balanced, florid, and full. 

My lovers suffocate me, 

Crowding my lips, thick in the pores of my skin. 

Jostling me through streets and public halls, coming naked to 

me at night, 
Crying by day Ahoy! from the rocks of the river, swinging 

and chirping over my head, 
Calling my name from flower-beds, vines, tangled underbrush, 
Lighting on every moment of my life, 
Bussing my body with soft balsamic busses, 
Noiselessly passing handfuls out of their hearts and giving 

them to be mine. 

Old age superbly rising! O welcome, ineffable grace of dying 
days! 

Every condition promulges not only itself, it promulges what 

grows after and out of itself, 
And the dark hush promulges as much as any. 

1 open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems, 
And all I see multiplied as high as I can cipher edge but the 

rim of the farther systems. 

Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding, 
Outward and outward and for ever outward. 

My sun has his sun and around him obediently wheels, 
He joins with his partners a group of superior circuit, 
And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside 
them. 

There is no stoppage and never can be stoppage, 



72 Leaves of Grass 

If I, you, and the worlds, all beneath or upon their surfaces, 
were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would 
not avail in the long run, 
We should surely bring up again where we now stand, 
And surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther. 

A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, 

do not hazard the span or make it impatient, 
They are but parts, anything is but a part. 

See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that, 
Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that. 

My rendezvous is appointed, it is certain, 

The Lord will be there and wait till I come on perfect 

terms, 
The great Camerado, the lover true for whom I pine will be 

there. 

46 

I know I have the best of time and space, and was never 
measured and never will be measured. 

I tramp a perpetual journey (come listen all!) 

My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut 

from the woods, 
No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair, 
I have no chair, no church, no philosophy, 
I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange, 
But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll, 
My left hand hooking you round the waist, 
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the 

public road. 

Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, 
You must travel it for yourself. 

It is not far, it is within reach, 

Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not 

know, 
Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land. 

Shoulder your duds, dear son, and I will mine, and let us 

hasten forth, 
Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go. 



Song of Myself 73 

If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your 

hand on my hip, 
And in due time you shali repay the same service to me, 
For after we start we never lie by again. 

This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the 
crowded heaven, 

And I said to my spirit, When we become the enf aiders of 
those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of everything 
in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then? 

And my spirit said, No, we but level that lift to pass and con- 
tinue beyond. 

You are also asking me questions and I hear you, 

I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself. 

Sit a while, dear son, 

Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink, 

But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, 

I kiss you with a good-bye kiss and open the gate for 

your egress hence. 

Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams, 

Now I wash the gum from your eyes, 

You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and or' 

every moment of your life. 
Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore, 
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, 
To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, 

shout, and laughingly dash with your hair. 

47 

I am the teacher of athletes, 

He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves 

the width of my own, 
He most honours my style who learns under it to destroy the 

teacher. 

The boy I love, the same becomes a man not through derived 

power, but in his own right, 
Wicked rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear, 
Fond of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak, 
Unrequited !ov« or a slight cutting, him worse than sharp 

steel cuts, 



■j4 Leaves of Grass 

First-rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull's eye, to sail a skirr, 

to sing a song or play on the banjo, 
Preferring scars and the beard and faces pitted with small-pox 

over all latherers, 
And those well-tann'd to those that keep out of the sun. 

I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me? 
I follow you whoever you are from the present hour, 
My words itch at your ears till you understand them. 

I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time 

while I wait for a boat, 
(It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue 

of you, 
Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen'd). 

I swear I will never again mention love or death inside a house, 

And I swear I will never translate myself at all, only to him 

or her who privately stays with me in the open air. 

If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore, 
The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of 

waves a key, 
The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words. 
No shutter'd room or school can commune with me, 
But roughs and little children better than they. 

The young mechanic is closest to me, he knows me well, 
The woodman that takes his axe and jug with him shall take 

me with him all day, 
The farm-boy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound 

of my voice, 
In vessels that sail my words sail, I go with fishermen and 

seamen and love them. 

The soldier camp'd or upon the march is mine, 

On the night ere the pending battle many seek me, and I do 

not fail them, 
On that solemn night (it may be their last) those that know 

me seek me. 

My face rubs to the hunter's face when he lies down alone in 

his blanket, 
The driver thinking of me does not mind the jolt of his 

wagon, 



Song of Myself 75 

The young mother and old mother comprehend me, 

The girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget 

where they are, 
They and all would resume what I have told them. 



48 

I have said that the soul is not more than the body, 
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, 
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is, 
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his 

own funeral drest in his shroud, 
And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of 

the earth, 
And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod con^ 

founds the learning of all times, 
And there is no trade or employment but the young man 

following it may become a hero, 
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the 

wheel'd universe, 
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and 

composed before a million universes. 
And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God, 
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God, 
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about 

God and about death). 

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God 

not in the least, 
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than 

myself. 

Why should I wish to see God better than this day? 

I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and 

each moment then, 
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own 

face in the glass, 
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is 

sign'd by God's name, 
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er 

I go, 
Others will punctually come for ever and ever. 



y6 Leaves of Grass 

49 

And as to you, Death, and you, bitter hug of mortality, it is 
idle to try to alarm me. 

To his work without flinching the accoucheur comes, 
I see the elder-hand pressing, receiving, supporting, 
I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors, 
And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape. 

And as to you, Corpse, I think you are good manure, but 

that does not oftend me, 
I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing, 
I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish'd breasts of 

melons. 

And as to you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many 

deaths, 
(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before). 

I hear you whispering there, O stars of heaven, 

suns — O grass of graves — O perpetual transfers and pro- 

motions, 
If you do not say anything how can I say anything? 
Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest, 
Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing twilight. 
Toss, sparkles of day and dusk — toss on the black stems that 

decay in the muck, 
Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs. 

t ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night, 

1 perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday sunbeams 

reflected, 
And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring 
great or small. 

50 

There is that in me — I do not know what it is — but I know it 
is in me. 

Wrench'd and sweaty — calm and cool then my body becomes, 
I sleep — I sleep long. 

I do not know it — it is without name — it is a word unsaid, 
It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol. 



Song of Myself 77 

Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on, 
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me. 

Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers 
and sisters. 

Do you see, O my brothers and sisters? 
It is not chaos or death — it is form, union, plan — it is eternal 
life — it is Happiness. 

51 

The past and present wilt — I have fill'd them, emptied them, 
And proceed to nil my next told of the luture. 

Listen up there! what have you to confide to me? 
Look in my face while 1 snuff the sidle of evening, 
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and 1 stay only a 
minute lonerer). 

Do I contradict myself? 
Very well then, I contradict myself, 
(1 am large, I contain multitudes). 

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door- 
slab. 

Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through 

with his supper? 
Who wishes to talk with me? 

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too 
late? 

52 

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of 
my gab and my loitering. 

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, 
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. 

The last scud of day holds back for me, 

It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the 

shadow'd wilds, 
It coaxes me to the vapour and the dusk. 

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, 
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. 



>8 



Leaves of Grass 



I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, 
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. 

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, 
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, 
And filter and fibre your blood. 

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, 
Missing me one place search another, 
I stop somewhere waiting for you. 



CHILDREN OF ADAM 



TO THE GARDEN THE WORLD 

To the garden the world anew ascending, 

Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding, 

The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being, 

Curious here behold my resurrection after slumber, 

The revolving cycles in their wide sweep having brought me 

again, 
Amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, all wondrous, 
My limbs and the quivering tire that ever plays through them, 

for reasons, most wondrous, 
Existing I peer and penetrate still, 
Content with the present, content with the past, 
By my side or back of me Eve following, 
Or in front, and I following her just the same. 



FROM PENT-UP ACHING RIVERS 

From pent-up aching rivers, 

From that of myself without which I were nothing, 

From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I 

stand sole among men, 
From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus, 
Singing the song of procreation, 
Singing the need of superb children and therein superb grown 

people, 
Singing the muscular urge and the blending, 
Singing the bedfellow's song (O resistless yearning! 
O for any and each the body correlative attracting! 
O for you, whoever you are, your correlative body ! O it, mor» 

than all else, you delighting!) 
From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day. 
From native moments, from bashful pains, singing them, 
Seeking something yet un found though I have diligently sought 

it many a long year, 

79 



80 Leaves of Grass 

Singing the true song of the soul fitful at random, 

Renascent with grossest Nature or among animals, 

Of that, of them and what goes with them my poems informing, 

Of the smell of apples and lemons, of the pairing of birds, 

Of the wet woods, of the lapping of waves, 

Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land, I them chanting, 

The overture lightly sounding, the strain anticipating, 

The welcome nearness, the sight of the perfect body, 

The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on 

his back lying and floating, 
The female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous, 

aching, 
The divine list for myself or you or for any one making, 
The face, the limbs, the index from head to foot, and what it 

arouses, 
The mystic deliria, the madness amorous, the utter abandon- 
ment, 
(Hark close and still what I now whisper to you, 
I love you, O you entirely possess me, 
O that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, free 

and lawless, 
Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea not 

more lawless than we;) 
The furious storm through me careering, I passionately 

trembling. 
The oath of the inseparableness of two together, of the woman 

that loves me and whom I love more than my life, that 

oath swearing, 
(0 1 willingly stake all for you, 
O let me be lost if it must be so! 

O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think? 
What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other and 

exhaust each other if it must be so;) 
From the master, the pilot I yield the vessel to, 
The general commanding me, commanding all, from him per- 
mission taking, 
From time the programme hastening (I have loiter'd too long 

as it is), 
From sex, from the warp and from the woof, 
From privacy, from frequent repinings alone, 
From plenty of persons near and yet the right person not near, 
From the soft sliding of hands over me and thrusting of 

fingers through my hair and beard. 



Children of Adam 81 

From the long sustain'd kiss upon the mouth or bosom, 
From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, 

fainting with excess, 
From what the divine husband knows, from the work of 

fatherhood, 
From exultation, victory, and relief, from the bedfellow's em' 

brace in the night, 
From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips, and bosoms, 
From the cling of the trembling arm, 
From the bending curve and the clinch, 
From side by side the pliant coverlet off-throwing, 
From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as 

unwilling to leave, 
(Yet a moment, O tender waiter, and I return), 
From the hour of shining stars and drooping dews, 
From the night a moment I emerging flitting out, 
Celebrate you act divine and you children prepared for, 
And you stalwart loins. 

I SING OF THE BODY ELECTRIC 

1 

I sing the body electric, 

The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, 
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, 
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of 
the soul. 

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies 

conceal themselves? 
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who 

defile the dead? 
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? 
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul? 

2 
The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the 

body itself balks account, 
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect. 

The expression of the face balks account, 
But the expressions of a well-made man appears not only in 
his face, 



82 Leaves of Grass 

It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints 

of his hips and wrists, 
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist 

and knees, dress does not hide him, 
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton 

and broadcloth, 
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps 

more, 
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and 

shoulder-side. 

The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of 

women, the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in 

the street, the contour of their shape downwards, 
The swimmer naked in the swimming bath, seen as he swims 

through the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face 

up and rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the water, 
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, 

the horseman in his saddle, 
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances, 
The group of labourers seated at noon-time with their open 

dinner-kettles, and their wives Waiting. 
The female soothing a child, the farmer's daughter in the 

garden or sow-yard, 
The young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his 

six horses through the crowd, 
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, 

lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at 

sun-down after work, 
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and 

resistance, 
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and 

blinding the eyes; 
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of 

masculine muscle through clean-setting trousers and waist- 
straps, 
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes 

suddenly again, and the listening on the alert, 
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv'd 

neck and the counting; 
Such-like I love — I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the 

mother's breast with the little child, 
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in 

line with the firemen, and pause, listen, count. 



Children of Adam 83 



I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons, 
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons. 

This man was of wonderful vigour, calmness, beauty of person, 
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair 

and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, 

the richness and breadth of his manners, 
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also, 
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons 

were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome, 
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved 

him, 
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with 

personal love, 
He drank water only, the blood show'd like scarlet through 

the clear-brown skin of his face, 
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail'd his boat him- 
self, he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, 

he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that 

loved him, 
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt 

or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and 

vigorous of the gang. 
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish 

to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch 

each other. 



I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough, 

To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough, 

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing 

flesh is enough, 
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so 

lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this 

then? 
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea. 

There is something in staying close to men and women and 
looking on them, and in the contact and odour of them, 
that pleases the soul well, 

All things please the soul, but these please the soul well. 



8 4 



Leaves of Grass 
5 



This is the female form, 

A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot, 

It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction, 

I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless 

vapour, all falls aside but myself and it, 
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what 

was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now con- 
sumed, 
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response 

likewise ungovernable, 
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all 

diffused, mine too diffused, 
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh 

swelling and deliciously aching, 
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly 

of love, white-blow and delirious juice, 
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the 

prostrate dawn, 
Undulating into the willing and yielding day, 
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day. 

This the nucleus — after the child is born of woman, man is 

born of woman, 
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and 

the outlet again. 

Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and 

is the exit of the rest, 
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the 

soul. 

The female contains all qualities and tempers them, 
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance, 
She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active, 
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well 
as daughters. 

As I see my soul reflected in Nature, 

As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, 

sanity, beauty, 
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female 

I see. 



Children of Adam 85 

6 

The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place, 

He too is all qualities, he is action and power, 

The flush of the known universe is in him, 

Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him 
well, 

The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that 
is utmost become him well, pride is for him, 

The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the 
soul, 

Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every- 
thing to the test of himself, 

Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail, he strike:? 
soundings at last only here, 

(Where else does he strike soundings except here?) 

The man's body is sacred, and the woman's body is sacred, 
No matter who it is, it is sacred — is it the meanest one in the 

laborourer's gang? 
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf? 
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, 

just as much as you, 
Each has his or her place in the procession. 

(All is a procession, 

The universe is a procession with measured and perfect 
motion.) 

Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest 

ignorant? 
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or 

she has no right to a sight? 
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse 

float, and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and 

vegetation sprouts 
For you only, and not for him and her? 



A man's body at auction, 

(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch 

the sale), 
I helo the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business. 



86 Leaves of Grass 

Gentlemen look on this wonder, 

Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough 

for it, 
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one 

animal or plant, 
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll'd. 

In this head the all-baffling brain, 

In it and below it the makings of heroes. 

Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in 

tendon and nerve, 
They shall be stript that you may see them. 

Exquisite sense, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition, 

Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not 

flabby, good-sized arms and legs, 
And wonders within there yet. 

Within there runs blood, 

The same old blood ! the same red-running blood 1 

There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, Teach- 
ings, aspirations, 

(Do you think they are not there because they are not 
express'd in parlours and lecture-rooms?) 

This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be 

fathers in their turns, 
In him the start of populous states and rich republics, 
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments 

and enjoyments. 

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his 

offspring through the centuries? 
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you 

could trace back through the centuries?) 

8 

A woman's body at auction, 

She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers. 

She is the bearer of them that shall grow to be mates to 

the mothers. 
Have you ever loved the ^ody of a woman? 



Children of Adam 87 

Have you ever loved the body of a man? 
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all 
nations and times all over the earth? 

If anything is sacred the human body is sacred, 

And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood 

untainted, 
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body is 

more beautiful than the most beautiful face. 

Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or 
the fool that corrupted her own live body? 

For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal them- 
selves. 

9 

my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men 

and women, nor the likes of the parts of you, 

1 believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of 

the soul (and that they are the soul), 

I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, 
and that they are my poems, 

Man's, woman's, child's, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's, 
father's, young man's, young woman's poems. 

Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears, 

Eyes, eye- fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or 
sleeping of the lids, 

Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the 
jaw-hinges, 

Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition, 

Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck- 
slue, 

Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and 
the ample side-round of the chest, 

Upper-arms, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm- 
bones, 

Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb forefinger, 
finger-joints, finger-nails, 

Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, 
breast-side. 

Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone, 

Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, 
man-balls, man-root. 

Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above, 



88 Leaves of Grass 

Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg, 

Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel; 

All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or 

your body or of any one's body, male or female, 
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and 

clean, 
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame, 
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity, 
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes 

from woman, 
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, 

weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings, 
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud, 
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep walking, swimming, 
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving 

and tightening, 
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around 

the eyes, 
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair, 
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the 

naked meat of the body, 
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,, 
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence 

downward toward the knees, 
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones- and 

the marrow in the bones, 
The exquisite realisation of health; 
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, 

but of the soul, 
O I say now these are the soul! 



A WOMAN WAITS FOR ME 

A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking, 
Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of 
the right man were lacking. 

Sex contains all, bodies, souls, 

Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, 

Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the 

seminal milk, 
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, 

beauties, delights of the earth, 



Children of Adam 89 

All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the 

earth, 
These are contain'd in sex as parts of itself and justification* 

of itself. 

Without shame the man I like knows and avows the delicious 

ness of his sex, 
Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers. 

Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women, 

I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those 

women that are warm-blooded and sufficient for me, 
I see that they understand me and do not deny me, 
I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the robust husband 

of those women. 

They are not one jot less than I am. 

They are tann'd in the face by shining suns and blowing winds, 
Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength, 
They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, 

retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves, 
They are ultimate in their own right — they are calm, clear, 

well possess'd of themselves. 

I draw you close to me, you women, 

I cannot let you go, I would do you good, 

I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, 

but for others' sakes, 
Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards, 
They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me. 

It is I, you women, I make my way, 

I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love you, 

I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you, 

I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these States 

I press with slow rude muscle, 
I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties, 
I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long ac- 
cumulated within me. 

Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself, 
In you I wrap a thousand onward years, 

On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me *n£ 
America, 



90 Leaves of Grass 

The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic 
girls, new artists, musicians, and singers. 

The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn, 

I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love- 
spendings, 

I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you 
interpenetrate now, 

I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as 
I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now, 

I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immor- 
tality, I plant so lovingly now. 



SPONTANEOUS ME 

Spontaneous me, Nature, 

The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with, 
The arm of my friend's hanging idly over my shoulder, 
The hillside whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash, 
The same late in autumn, the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, 

and light and dark green, 
The rich coverlet of the grass, animals, and birds, the private 

untrimm'd bank, the primitive apples, the pebble-stones, 
Beautiful dripping fragments, the negligent list of one after 

another as I happen to call them to me or think of them, 
The real poems (what we call poems being merely pictures), 
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me, 
This poem drooping shy and unseen that I always carry, and 

that all men carry, 
(Know once for all, avow'd on purpose, wherever are men like 

me, are our lusty lurking masculine poems), 
Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odour, love-yielding, love- 
climbers, and the climbing sap, 
Arms and hands of love, lips of love, phallic thumb of love, 
breasts of love, bellies press'd and glued together with love, 
Earth of chaste love, life that is only life after love, 
The body of my love, the body of the woman I love, the body 

of the man, the body of the earth, 
Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west, 
The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down, 
that gripes the full-grown lady-flower, curves upon her 
with amorous firm legs, takes his will of her, and holds 
himself tremulous and tight till he is satisfied; 
The wet of woods through the early hours, 



Children of Adam 91 



Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one 

with an arm slanting down across and below the waist of 

the other, 
The smell of apples, aromas from crush'd sage-plant, mint, 

birch-bark, 
The boy's longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me 

what he was dreaming, 
The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl and falling still and con- 
tent to the ground, 
The no-form'd stings that sights, people, objects, sting me with, 
The hubb'd sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ever can 

any one, 
The sensitive, orbic, underlapp'd brothers, that only privileged 

feelers may be intimate where they are, 
The curious reamer the hand roaming all over the body, the 

bashful withdrawing of fles^ where the fingers soothingly 

pause and edge themselves, 
The limpid liquid within the young man, 
The vex'd corrosion so pensive and so painful, 
The torment, the irritable tide that will not be at rest, 
The like of the same I feel, the, like of the same in others, 
The young man that flushes and flushes, and the young 

woman that flushes and flushes, 
The young man that wakes deep at night, the hot hand seeking 

to repress what would master him, 
The mystic amorous night, the strange half-welcome pangs, 

visions, sweats, 
The pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling 
fingers, the young man all colour'd, red, ashamed, angry ; 
The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing and 

naked. 
The merriment of the twin babes that crawl over the grass m 
the sun, the mother never turning her vigilant eyes from 
them, 
The walnut-trunk, the walnut-huJcs, and the ripening or 

ripen'd long-round walnuts, 
The continence of vegetables, birds, animals, 
The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself 
indecent, while birds and animals never once skulk or find 
themselves indecent, 
The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of 
maternity, 



92 Leaves of Grass 

The oath of procreation I have sworn, my Adamic and fresh 

daughters, 
The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I 

saturate what shall produce boys to fill my place when- 1 

am through, 
The wholesome relief, repose, content, 
And this bunch pluck'd at random from myself, 
It has done its work — I toss it carelessly to fall where it may. 

ONE HOUR TO MADNESS AND JOY 

One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not! 

(What is this that frees me so in storms? 

What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?) 

O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man! 
savage and tender achings ! (I bequeath them to you my 

children, 
[ tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.) 

O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded 

to me in defiance of the world ! 
O to return to Paradise ! O bashful and feminine ! 
O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips 

of a determin'd man. 

O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all 

untied and illumin'd! 
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last ! 
To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from 

mine and you from yours ! 
To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of 

Nature I 
To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth ! 
To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am. 

O something unprov'd! something in a trance! 

To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds! 

To drive free ! to love free ! to dash reckless and dangerous ! 

To court destruction with taunts, with invitations! 

To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me ! 

To rise thither with my inebriate soul! 

To be lost if it must be so! 



Children of Adam 93 

To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and 

freedom ! 
With one brief hour of madness and joy. 

OUT OF THE ROLLING OCEAN THE CROWD 

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me, 

Whispering, / love you, before long I die, 

J have travell'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you, 

For I could not die till t once look'd on you, 

For I fear'd I might afterward lose you. 

Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe, 

Return in peace to the ocean my love, 

I too am part of that ocean, my love, we are not so much 

separated, 
Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect ! 
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, 
As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse 

forever ; 
Be not impatient — a little space — know you I salute the air, 

the ocean and the land, 
Every day at sundown for your dear sake, my love. 

AGES AND AGES RETURNING AT INTERVALS 

Ages and ages returning at intervals, 
Undestroy'd, wandering immortal, 

Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet, 
I, chanter of Adamic songs, 

Through the new garden the West, the great cities calling, 
Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offer- 
ing myself, 
Bathing myself, bathing n0' songs in Sex, 
Offspring of my loins. 

WE TWO, HOW LONG WE WERE FOOL'D 

We two, how long we were fool'd, 

Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes, 

We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we 

return, 
We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark, 
We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks, 
We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side, 

ft 



94 Leaves of Grass 

We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as 

any, 
We are two fishes swimming in the sea together, 
We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes 

mornings and evenings, 
We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals, 
We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down, 
We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves 

orbic and stellar, we are as two comets, 
We prowl fang'd and four-footed in the woods, we spring on 

prey, 
We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead, 
We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves roll- 
ing over each other and interwetting each other, 
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, 

impervious, 
W T e are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and 

influence of the globe, 
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, 

we two, 
We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy. 

O HYMEN! O HYMENEE! 

O hymen! O hymenee! why do you tantalise me thus? 

why sting me for a swift moment only? 

Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease? 
Is it because if you continued beyond the swift moment you 
would soon certainly kill me? 

I AM HE THAT ACHES WITH LOVE 

1 am he that aches with amorous love ; 

Does the earth gravitate? does not all matter, aching, attract 

all matter? 
So the body of me to all I meet or know. 

NATIVE MOMENTS 

Native moments— when you come upon me— ah, you are here 

now, 
Give me now libidinous joys only, 
Give me the drench of my passions, give me life coarse and 

rank, 



Children of Adam 95 

To-day I go consort with Nature's darlings, to-night too, 
I am for those who believe in l^ose delights, I share the mid. 

night orgies of young men, 
I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers, 
The echoes ring with our indecent calls, I pick out some low 

person for my dearest friend, 
He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate, he shall be one condemn'd 

by others for deeds done, 
I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from 

my companions? 

you shunn'd persons, I at least do not shun you, 

1 come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet, 
I will be more to you than to any of the rest. 



ONCE I PASS'D THROUGH A POPULOUS CITY 

Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain Iia 

future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions 
Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually 

met there who detain'd me for love of me, 
Day by day and night by night we were together — all else hai 

long been forgotten by me, 
I remember, I say, only that woman who passionately clunjj 

to me, 
Again we wander, we love, we separate again, 
Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go, 
I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous. 



I HEARD YOU SOLEMN-SWEET PIPES 
OF THE ORGAN 

I heard you solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last Sunday 

morn I pass'd the church, 
Winds of autumn, as I walk'd the woods at dusk I heard your 

long-stretch'd sighs up above so mournful, 
I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at the opera, I heard 

the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing; 
Heart of my love ! you too I heard murmuring low through 

one of the wrists around my head, 
Heard the pulse of you when all was still ringing little bell.* 

last night under my ear 



96 Leaves of Grass 

FACING WEST FROM CALIFORNIA'S SHORES 

Facing west from California's shores, 

Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet un found, 

I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, 

the land of migrations, look afar, 
Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost 

circled ; 
For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of 

Kashmere, 

From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the 

hero, 
From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice 

islands, 
Long having wander'd since, round the earth having wander'd, 
Now I face home again, very pleas'd and joyous, 
(But where is what I started for so long ago? 
And why is it yet unfound?) 

AS ADAM EARLY IN THE MORNING 

As Adam early in the morning, 

Walking forth from the bower refresh'd with sleep, 

Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach, 

Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass, 

Be not afraid of my body. 



CALAMUS 



IN PATHS UNTRODDEN 

In paths untrodden, 

In the growth by margins of pond-waters, 

Escaped from the life that exhibits itself, 

From all the standards hitherto publish'd, from the pleasures, 
profits, conformities, 

Which too long I was offering to feed my soul, 

Clear to me now standards not yet publish'd, clear to me that 
my soul, 

That the soul of the man I speak of rejoices in comrades, 

Here by myself away from the clank of the world, 

Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic, 

No longer abash'd (for in this secluded spot I can respond a* 
I would not dare elsewhere), 

Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet con- 
tains all the rest, 

Resolv'd to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attach- 
ment, 

Projecting them along that substantial life, 

Bequeathing hence types of athletic love, 

Afternoon this delicious Ninth-month in my forty-first year, 

1 proceed for all who are or have been young men, 

To tell the secret of my nights and days, 

To celebrate the need of comrades. 

SCENTED HERBAGE OF MY BREAST 

Scented herbage of my breast, 

Leaves from you I gleam, I write, to be perused best after- 
wards, 

Tomb-leaves, body-leaves growing up above me above death, 

Perennial roots, tall leaves, O the winter shall not freeze you, 
delicate leaves, 

Every year shall you bloom again, out from where you retired 
you shall emerge again ; 

97 



9§ 



Leaves of Grass 



O I do not know whether many passing by will discover you or 

inhale your faint odour, but I believe a few will; 
O slender leaves ! O blossoms of my blood ! I permit you to 

tell in your own way of the heart that is under you, 
O I do not know what you mean there underneath yourselves, 

you are not happiness, 
You are often more bitter than I can bear, you burn and sting 

me, 
Yet you are beautiful to me you faint-tinged roots, you make 

me think of death, 
Death is beautiful from you (what indeed is finally beautiful 

except death and love?) 

I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of 

lovers, I think it must be for death, 

For how calm, how solemn it grows to ascend to the atmos- 
phere of lovers, 

Death or life I am then indifferent, my soul declines to prefer, 

(I am not sure but the high soul of lovers welcomes death most), 

indeed, O death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the 
same as you mean, 

Grow up taller sweet leaves that I may see ! grow up out of 
my breast ! 

Spring away from the conceal'd heart there ! 

Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots' timid leaves 1 

Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast ! 

Come, I am determin'd to unbare this broad breast of mine, I 
have long enough stifled and choked; 

Emblematic and capricious blades I leave you, now you serve 
me not, 

1 will say what I have to say by itself, 

I will sound myself and comrades only, I will never again 

utter a call only their call, 
I will rise with it immortal reverberations through the States, 
I will give an example to lovers to take permanent shape and 

will through the States, 
Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating, 
Give me your tone therefore, O death, that I may accord with it, 
Give me yourself, for I see that you belong to me now above 

all, and are folded inseparably together, you love and 

death are, 
Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was 

calling life, 
For now it is conveyed to me that you are the purports essential. 



Calamus 99 

That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons, and 

that they are mainly for you, 
That you beyond them come forth to remain, the real reality, 
That behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no 

matter how long, 
That you will one day perhaps take control of all, 
That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance, 
That may-be you are what it is all for, but it does not last so 

very long, 
But you will last very long. 

WHOEVER YOU ARE HOLDING ME NOW IN HAND 

Whoever you are holding me now in hand, 

Without one thing all will be useless, 

I give you fair warning before you attempt me further, 

I am not what you supposed, but far different. 

Who is he that would become my follower? 

Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? 

The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive, 
You would have to give up all else, I alone would expect to bt. 

your sole and exclusive standard, 
Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting, 
The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the 

lives around you would have to be abandon'd, 
Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any 

further, let go your hand from my shoulders, 
Put me down and depart on your way. 

Or else by stealth in some wood for trial, 

Or back of a rock in the open air, 

(For in any roof'd room of a house I emerge not, nor in 

company, 
And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or 

dead), 
But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any 

person for miles around approach unawares, 
Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea 

or some quiet island, 
Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you, 
With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss or the new husband's 

kiss. 
For I am the new husband and I am. the comrade. 



ioo Leaves of Grass 

Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing, 

Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip, 

Carry me when you go forth over land or sea ; 

For thus merely touching you is enough, is best, 

And thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried 

eternally. 

* 
But these leaves conning you con at peril, 
For these leaves and me you will not understand, 
They will elude you at first and still more afterward, I will 

certainly elude you, 
Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught 

me, behold! 
Already you see I have escaped from you. 

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written 

this book, 
Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it, 
Nor do those know me best who admire me and vauntingly 

praise me, 
Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very 

few) prove victorious, 
Wor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much 

evil, perhaps more, 
For all is useless without that which you may guess at many 

times and not hit, that which I hinted at; 
Therefore release me and depart on your way. 

FOR YOU, O DEMOCRACY 

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble, 

I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon, 

I will make divine magnetic lands, 

With the love of comrades, 

With the life-long love of comrades. 

I will plant companionship thick as trees along the rivers of 
America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all 
over the prairies, 
I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each 
other's necks, 

By the love of comrades, 

By the manly love of comrades. 
For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma f emnrc ! 
For you, for you I am trilling these songs. 



Calamus 101 

THESE I SINGING IN SPRING 

These I singing in spring collect for lovers, 

(For who but I should understand lovers and all their sorrow 

and joy? 
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?) 
Collecting I traverse the garden the world, but soon I pass the 

gates, 
Now along the pond-side, now wading in a little, fearing not 

the wet, 
Now by the post-and-rail fences where the old stones thrown 

there, picked from the fields, have accumulated, 
(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the 

stones and partly cover them, beyond these I pass), 
Far, far in the forest, or sauntering later in summer, before I 

think where I go, 
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in 

the silence, 
Alone I had thought, yet soon a troop gathers around me, 
Some walk by my side and some behind, and some embracu 

my arms or neck, 
They the spirits of dear friends dead or alive, thicker they 

come, a great crowd, and I in the middle, 
Collecting, dispensing, singing, there I wander with them, 
Plucking something for tokens, tossing toward whoever is 

near me, 
Here, lilac, with a branch of pine, 

Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd off a live- 
oak in Florida as it hung trailing down, 
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage, 
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the 

pond-side, 
(0 here I last saw him that tenderly loves me, and returns 

again never to separate from me, 
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades, 

this calamus-root shall, 
Interchange it youths with each other ! let none render it 

back!) 
And twigs of maple and a bunch of wild orange and chestnut, 
And stems of currants and plum-blows, and the aromatic 

cedar, 
These I compass'd around by a thick cloud of spirits, 
Wandering, point to or touch as I pass, or throw the** 
loosely from me, 



102 Leaves of Grass 

Indicating to each one what he shall have, giving something 

to each; 
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I 

reserve, 
I will give of it, but only to them that love as I myself am 

capable of loving. 

NOT HEAVING FROM MY RIBB'D BREAST ONLY 

Not heaving from my ribb'd breast only, 

Not in sighs at night in rage dissatisfied with myself, 

Not in those long-drawn, ill-supprest sighs, 

Not in many an oath and promise broken, 

Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition, 

Not in the subtle nourishment of the air, 

Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists, 

Not in the curious systole and diastole within which will one 

day cease, 
Not in many a hungry wish told to the skies only, 
Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone 

far in the wilds, 
Not in husky pantings through clinched teeth, 
Not in sounded and resounded words, chattering words, 

echoes, dead words, 
Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep, 
x\ T or the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every 

day, 
Nor in the limbs and senses of my body that take you and 

dismiss you continually — not there, 
Not in any or all of them, O adhesiveness ! O pulse of my life! 
Need I that you exist and show yourself any more than in 

these songs. 

OF THE TERRIBLE DOUBT OF APPEARANCES 

Of the terrible doubt of appearances, 
Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded, 
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all, 
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only, 
May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills, 

shining and flowing waters, 
The skies of day and night, colours, densities, forms, may-be 

these are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and 

the real something has yet to be known, 



Calamus 103 



(How often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me 
and mock me! 

How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, 
aught of them), 

May-be seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they in- 
deed but seem) as from my present point of view, and 
might prove (as of course they would) nought of what 
they appear, or nought anyhow, from entirely changed 
points of view ; 

To me these and the like of these are curiously answer'd bj 
my lovers, my dear friends, 

When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long whilr 
holding me by the hand, 

When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and 
reason hold not, surround us and pervade us, 

Then I am charged with untold and untenable wisdom, I am 
silent, I require nothing further, 

I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of 
identity beyond the grave, 

But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied, 

He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me. 

THE BASE OF ALL METAPHYSICS 

And now, gentlemen, 

A word I give to remain in your memories and minds, 

As base and finale too for all metaphysics. 

(So to the students the old professor, 
At the close of his crowded course.) 

Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic 

systems, 
Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and 

Hegel, 
Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato, 
And greater than Socrates sought and stated, Christ divine 

having studied long, 
I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems, 
See the philosophies all, Christen churches and tenets sec 
Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ 

the divine I see, 
The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend 

to friend. 



104 Leaves of Grass 

Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and 

parents, 
Of city for city and land for land. 

RECORDERS AGES HENCE 

Recorders ages hence, 

Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive ex- 
terior, I will tell you what to say of me, 
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the 

tenderest lover, 
The friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his lover 

was fondest, 
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean 

of love within him, and freely pour'd it forth, 
Who often walk'd lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends, 

his lovers, 
Who pensive away from one he lov'd often lay sleepless and 

dissatisfied at night, 
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov'd 

might secretly be indifferent to him, 
Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in woods, 

on hills, he and another wandering hand in hand, they 

twain apart from other men, 
Who oft as he saunterd the streets curv'd with his arm the 

shoulder of his friend, while the arm of his friend rested 

upon him also. 

WHEN I HEARD AT THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 

When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been 

receiv'd with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a 

happy night for me that follow'd, 
And else when I carous'd, or when my plans were ac- 

complish'd, still I was not happy, 
•But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect 

health, ref resh'd, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn, 
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear 

in the morning light, 
When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, 

laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise, 
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on 

his way coming, O then I was happy, 



Calamus 105 

then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food 

nourish'd me more, and the beautiful day pass'd well, 
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at eve- 
ning came my friend, 
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll 
slowly continually up the shores, 

1 heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed 

to me whispering to congratulate me, 

For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same 
cover in the cool night, 

In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was in- 
clined toward me, 

And his arm lay lightly around my breast — and that night 1 
was happy. 

ARE YOU THE NEW PERSON DRAWN TOWARD ME> 

Are you the new person drawn toward me? 

To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from 
what you suppose; 

Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? 

Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover? 

Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satis- 
faction ? 

Do you think I am trusty and faithful? 

Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tol- 
erant manner of me? 

Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a 
real heroic man? 

Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be # all maya, 
illusion? 



ROOTS AND LEAVES THEMSELVES ALONE 

Roots and leaves themselves alone are these, 

Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods and 

pond-side, 
Breast-sorrel and pinks of love, fingers that wind around 

tighter than vines, 
Gushes from the throats of birds hid in the foliage of trees 

as the sun is risen, 
Breezes of land and love set from living shores to you on th« 

living sea, to you O sailors ! 



106 Leaves of Grass 

Frost-mellow'd berries and Third-month twigs offer'd fresh 

to young persons wandering out in the fields when the 

winter breaks up, 
Love-buds put before you and within you whoever you are, 
Buds to be unfolded on the old terms, 
If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open 

and bring form, colour, perfume, to you, 
If you become the aliment and the wet they will become 

flowers, fruits, tall branches, and trees. 



NOT HEAT FLAMES UP AND CONSUMES 

Not heat flames up and consumes, 

Not sea-waves hurry in and out, 

Not the air delicious and dry, the air of ripe summer, bears 
lightly along white down-balls of myriads of seeds, 

Wafted, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may; 

Not these, O none of these more than the flames of me, con- 
suming, burning for his love whom I love, 

O none more than I hurrying in and out ; 

Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? 
O I the same, 

O nor down-balls nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting 
clouds, are borne through the open air, 

Any more than my soul is borne through the open air, 

Wafted in all directions O love, for friendship, for you. 



TRICKLE DROPS 

Trickle drops ! my blue veins leaving ! 

O drops of me! trickle, slow drops, 

Candid from me falling, drip, bleeding drops, 

From wounds made to free you whence you were prison'd, 

From my face, from my forehead and lips, 

From my breast, from within where I was conceal'd, press 

forth red drops, confession drops, 
Stain every page, stain every song I sing, every word I say, 

bloody drops, 
Let them know your scarlet heat, let them glisten, 
Saturate them with yourself all ashamed and wet, 
Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding drops, 
Let it all be seen w. your 1'ght, blushing drops. 



Calamus 107 

CITY OF ORGIES 

City of orgies, walks, and joys, 

City whom that I have Jived and sung in your midst will one 

day make you illustrious, 
Not the pageants of you, not your shifting tableaus, your 

spectacles, repay me, 
Not the interminable rows of your houses, nor the ships at 

the wharves, 
Nor the processions in the streets, nor the bright windows with 

goods in them, 
Nor to converse with learn'd persons, or bear my share in the 

soiree or feast; 
Not those, but as I pass, O Manhattan, your frequent and 

swift flash of eyes offering me love, 
Offering response to my own — these repay me, 
Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me. 

BEHOLD THIS SWARTHY FACE 

Behold this swarthy face, these grey eyes, 

This beard, the white wool unclipt upon my neck, 

My brown hands and the silent manner of me without charm ; 
Yet comes one a Manhattanese and ever at parting kisses me 

lightly on the lips with robust love, 
And I on the crossing of the street or on the ship's deck give 

a kiss in return, 
We observe that salute of American comrades land and sea, 
We are those two natural and nonchalant persons. 

I SAW IN LOUISIANA A LIVE-OAK GROWING 

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, 

All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches, 

Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves 

of dark green, 
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself, 
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone. 

there without its friend near, for I knew I could not, 
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon 

it, and twined around it a little moss, 
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room, 
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends 



io8 Leaves of Grass 

(For 1 believe lately I think of little else than of them), 

Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of 
manly love; 

For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louis- 
iana solitary in a wide flat space, 

Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near, 

7. know very well I could not. 

TO A STRANGER 

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look 

upon you, 
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking (it comes 

to me as of a dream), 
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, 
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, 

chaste, matured, 
You grew up with me, were a boy with men or a girl with me, 
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not 

yours only nor left my body mine only, 
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, 

you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return, 
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit 

alone or wake at night alone, 
1 am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, 
I am to see to it that I do not lose you. 



THIS MOMENT YEARNING AND THOUGHTFUL 

This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone, 

It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning 

and thoughtful, 
It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Germany, 

Italy, France, Spain, 
Or far, far away, in China, or in Russia, or Japan, talking 

other dialects, 
And it seems to me if I could know those men I should 

become attached to them as I do to men in my own lands, 

I know we should be brethren and lovers, 

1 know I should be happy with them. 

I HEAR IT WAS CHARGED AGAINST ME 
I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy 
institutions, 



Calamus 109 

But really I am neither for nor against institutions, 

(What indeed have I in common with them? or what with th& 

destruction of them?) 
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of 

these States inland and seaboard, 
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or 

large that dents the water, 
Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument, 
The institution of the dear love of comrades. 



THE PRAIRIE-GRASS DIVIDING 

The prairie-grass dividing, its special odour breathing, 

I demand of it the spiritual corresponding, 

Demand the most copious and close companionship of men, 

Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings, 

Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious, 

Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and 
command, leading not following, 

Those with a never-quell'd audacity, those with sweet and 
lusty flesh clear of taint, 

Those that look carelessly in the faces of presidents and gover- 
nors, as to say, Who are you? 

Those of earth-born passion, simple, never constrain'd,. never 
obedient, 

Those of inland America. 



WHEN I PERUSE THE CONQUER'D FAME 

When I peruse the conquer'd fame of heroes and the victories 
of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals, 

Nor the President in his presidency, nor the rich in his great 
house, 

But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was 
with them, 

How together through life, through dangers, odium, unchang- 
ing, long and long, 

Through youth and through middle and old age, how unfalter- 
ing, how affectionate and faithful they were, 

Then I am pensive — I hastily walk away fill'd with Mhe bitter- 
est envy. 



no Leaves of Grass 

WE TWO BOYS TOGETHER CLINGING 

We two boys together clinging, 

One the other never leaving, 

Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions 
making, 

Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching, 

Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving, 

No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thiev- 
ing, threatening, 

Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drink- 
ing, on the turf of the sea-beach dancing, 

Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness 
chasing, 

Fulfilling our foray. 

A PROMISE TO CALIFORNIA 

A promise to California, 

Or inland to the great pastoral Plains, and on to Puget Sound 

and Oregon; 
Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to 

remain, to teach robust American love, 
For I know very well that I and robust love belong among 

you, inland, and along the Western sea ; 
For these States tend inland and toward the Western sea, and 

I will also. 

HERE THE FRAILEST LEAVES OF ME 

Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, 
Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do T iot expose 

them, 
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems. 

NO LABOUR-SAVING MACHINE 

No labour-saving machine, 

Nor discovery have I made, 

Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to 

found a hospital or library, 
Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage for America, 
Nor literary success nor intellect, nor book for the book-shelf, 
But a few carols vibrating through the air I leave, 
For comrades and lover:*. 



Calamus 1 1 1 

A GLIMPSE 

A glimpse though an interstice caught, 

Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around 
the stove late of a winter night, and 1 unremark'd seated 
in a corner, 

Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approach- 
ing and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the 
hand, 

A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking 
and oath and smutty jest, 

There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking 
little, perhaps not a word. 

A LEAF FOR HAND IN HAND 

A leaf for hand in hand; 

You natural persons old and young! 

You on the Mississippi and on all the branches and bayous of 

the Mississippi ! 
You friendly boatmen and mechanics ! you roughs ! 
You twain ! and all processions moving along the streets ! 
I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for 

you to walk hand in hand. 

EARTH, MY LIKENESS 

Earth, my likeness, 

Though you look so impassive, ample, and spheric there, 

I now suspect that is not all; 

I now suspect there is something fierce in you eligible to 

burst forth, 
For an athlete is enamour'd of me, and I of him, 
But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me 

eligible to burst forth, 
I dare not tell it in words, not even in these songs. 

I DREAM'D IN A DREAM 

I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks 

of the whole of the rest of the earth, 
I dreamed that was the new city of Friends, 
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it 

led the rest, 
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city, 
And in all their looks and words. 



H2 Leaves of Grass 

WHAT THINK YOU I TAKE MY PEN IN HAND? 

What think you I take my pen in hand to record? 

The battle-ship, perfect-modell'd, majestic, that I saw pass the 

offing to-day under full sail? 
The splendours of the past day? or the splendour of the night 

that envelops me? 
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread 

around me? — no; 
But merely of two simple men I saw to-day on the pier in the 

midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends, 
The one to remain hung on the other's neck and passionately 

kiss'd him, 
While the one to depart tightly prest the one to remain in b»s, 

arms. 

TO THE EAST AND TO THE WEST 

To the East and to the West, 

To the man of the Seaside State and of Pennsylvania, 

To the Kanadian of the north, to the Southerner I love, 

These with perfect trust to depict you as myself, the germs 

are in all men, 
I believe the main purport of these States is to found a superb 

friendship, exalte, previously unknown, 
Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent 

in all men. 

SOMETIMES WITH ONE I LOVE 

Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I 
effuse unreturn'd love, 

But now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay is cer- 
tain one way or another, 

(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not 
return'd, 

Yet out of that I have written these sones"). 

TO A WESTERN BOY 

Many things to absorb I teach to help you become eleve of 

mine; 
Yet if blood like mine circle not in your veins, 
If you be not silently selected by lovers and do not silently 

select lovers, 
Of what use is it that you seek to become eleve of mine? 



Calamus 113 

FAST-ANCHOR'D ETERNAL O LOVE! 

Fast-anchor'd eternal O love ! O woman I love ! 

bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thoughts 

of you ! 
Then separate, as disembodied or another born, 
Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation, 

1 ascend, I float in the regions of your love, O man, 

sharer of my roving life. 

AMONG THE MULTITUDE 

Among the men and women the multitude, 

1 perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs, 
Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, 

child, any nearer than I am, 
Some are baffled, but that one is not — that one knows me. 

Ah, lover, and perfect equal, 

I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections, 

And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you. 

O YOU WHOM I OFTEN AND SILENTLY COME 

O you whom I often and silently come where you are that I 

may be with you, 
As I walk by your side or sit near, or remain in the same 

room with you, 
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is 

playing within me. 



THAT SHADOW MY LIKENESS 

That shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a liveli- 
hood, chattering, chaffering, 
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it 
flits, 

How often I question and doubt whether that is really me; 
But among my lovers and carolling these songs, 
Or I never doubt whether that is really me. 



ii4 Leaves of Grass 

FULL OF LIFE NOW 

Full of life now, compact, visible, 
I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States, 
To one a century hence or any number of centuries hence, 
To you yet unborn these, seeking you. 

When you read these I that was visible am become invisible, 
Now it is you, compact, visible, realising my poems, seeking me. 
Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and 

become your comrade ; 
Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am 

now with you.) 



SALUT AU MONDE 1 



O take my hand, Walt Whitman ! 
Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds! 
Such join'd unended links, each hook'd to the next, 
Each answering all, each sharing the earth with all. 

W T hat widens within you, Walt Whitman? 

What waves and soils exuding? 

What climes? what persons and cities are here? 

Who are the infants, some playing, some slumbering? 

Who are the girls? who are the married women? 

Who are the groups of old men going slowly with their arms 

about each other's necks? 
What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these? 
What are the mountains call'd that rise so high in the mists? 
What myriads of dwellings are they fill'd with dwellers? 



Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens, 

Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east — America is provided 

for in the west, 
Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator, 
Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends, 
Within me is the longest day, the sun wheels in slanting rings, 

it does not set for months, 
Stretched in due time within me the midnight sun just rises 

above the horizon and sinks again, 
Within me zones, seas, cataracts, forests, volcanoes, groups, 
Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands. 

3 

What do you hear, Walt Whitman ? 

I hear the workman singing and the farmer's wife singing, 
I hear in the distance the sounds of children and of animals 
early in the day, 

115 



u6 Leaves of Grass 

I hear emulous shouts of Australians pursuing the wild horse, 
I hear the Spanish dance with castanets in the chestnut shade, 

to the rebeck and guitar, 
I hear continual echoes from the Thames, 
I hear fierce French liberty songs, 
I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old 

poems, 
I hear the locusts in Syria as they strike the grain and grass 

with the showers of their terrible clouds, 
I hear the Coptic refrain toward sundown, pensively falling on 

the breast of the black venerable vast mother the Nile, 
I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the 

mule, i 

I hear the Arab muezzin calling from the top of the mosque, 
I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches, I 

hear the responsive base and soprano, 
I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor's voice putting to 

sea at Okotsk, 
I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle as the slaves march on, 

as the husky gangs pass on by twos and threes, fasten'd 

together with wrist-chains and ankle-chains, 
I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms, 
I hear the rhymthic myths of the Greeks, and the strong 

legends of the Romans, 
I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beau- 
tiful God the Christ, 
I hear the Hindoo teaching his favourite pupil the loves, wars, 

adages, transmitted safely to this day from poets who 

wrote three thousand years ago. 



What do you see, Walt Whitman? 

Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you? 

I see a great round wonder rolling through space, 
I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, graveyards, jails, fac- 
tories, palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads 
upon the surface, 
I see the shaded part on one side where the sleepers are sleep- 
ing, and the sunlit part on the other side, 
I see the curious rapid change of light and shade, 
I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them 
as my land is to me. 



Salut au Monde! 1 17 

I see plenteous waters, 

I see mountain peaks, I see the sierras of Andes where they 

range, 
I see plainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts, 
I see the giant pinnacles of Elbruz, Kazbek, Bazardjusi, 
I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps, 
I see the Pyrerees, Balks, Carpathians, and to the north the 

Dofrafields, and off at sea Mount Hecla, 
I see Vesuvius and Etna, the Mountains of the Moon, and the 

Red Mountains of Madagascar, 
I see the Lybian, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts, 
I see huge dreadful Arctic and Antarctic icebergs, 
I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones, the Atlantic 

and Pacific, the Sea of Mexico, the Brazilian Sea, and the 

Sea of Peru, 
The waters of Hindustan, the China Sea, and the Gulf of 

Guinea, 
The Japan waters, the beautiful bay of Nagasaki, land-lock'd 

in its mountains, 
The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, 

and the Bay of Biscay, 
The clear-sunn'd Mediterranean, and from one to another of 

its islands, 
The White Sea, and the sea around Greenland. 

I behold the mariners of the world, 

Some are in storms, some in the night with the watch on the 

lookout, 
Some drifting helplessly, some with contagious diseases. 

I behold the sail and steamships of the world, some in clusters 

in port, some on their voyages, 
Some double the Cape of Storms, some Cape Verde, others 

Capes Guardafui, Bon, or Bajadore, 
Others Dondra Head, others pass the Straits of Sunda, others 

Cape Lopatka, others Behring's Straits, 
Others Cape Horn, others sail the Gulf of Mexico or along 

Cuba or Hayti, others Hudson's Bay or Baffin's Bay, 
Others pass the Straits of Dover, others enter the Wash, 

others the Firth of Sol way, others round Cape Clear, 

others the Land's End, 
Others traverse the Zuyder Zee or the Scheld, 
Others as comers and goers at Gibraltar or the Dardanelles, 
Others sternly push their way through the northern winter- 
packs 



n8 Leaves of Grass 

Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena, 

Others the Niger or the Congo, others the Indus, the Buram- 
pooter and Cambodia, 

Others wait steam'd up ready to start in the ports of Aus- 
tralia, 

Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseilles, Lisbon, 
Naples, Hamburg, Bremen, Bordeaux, the Hague, Copen- 
hagen, 

Wait at Valparaiso, Rio Janeiro, Panama. 



I see the tracks of the railroads of the earth, 

I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Europe, 

I see them in Asia and in Africa. 

I see the electric telegraphs of the earth, 

I see the filaments of the news of the wars, deaths, losses, 
gains, passions, of my race. 

I see the long river-stripes of the earth, 

I see the Amazon and the Paraguay, 

I see the four great rivers of China, the Amour, the Yellow 

River, the Yiang-tse, and the Pearl. 
I see where the Seine flows, and where the Danube, the Loire, 

the Rhone, and the Guadalquiver flow, 
I see the windings of the Volga, the Dneiper, the Oder, 
I see the Tuscan going down the Arno, and the Venetian 

along the Po, 
I see the Greek seaman sailing out of Egina Bay. 



I see the site of the old empire of Assyria, and that of Per- 
sia, and that of India, 
I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Saukara. 

I see the place of the idea of the Deity incarnated by avatars 
in human forms, 

I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth, 
oracles, sacrifices, brahmins, sabians, llamas, monks, muf- 
tis, exhorters, 

I see where druids walk'd the groves of Mona, I see the 
mistletoe and vervain, 



Salut au Monde! 119 

I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of gods, I see 

the old signifiers, . 
I see Christ eating the bread of His last supper in the midst 

of youths and old persons, 
I see where the strong divine young man the Hercules 

toil'd faithfully and long and then died, 
I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of 

the beautiful nocturnal son, the full-limb'd Bacchus, 
I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of 

feathers on his head, 
I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-belov'd, saying to the 

people, Do not weep for me, 
This is not my true country, I have lived banish'd from my 

true country, I now go back there, 
I return to the celestial sphere where every one goes in his turn. 



I see the battle-fields of the earth, grass grows upon them 

and blossoms and corn, 
I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions. 

I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the un- 
known events, heroes, records of the earth. 

I see the places of the sagas, 

I see pine-trees and fir-trees torn by northern blasts, 

I see granite boulders and cliffs, I see green meadows and 

lakes, 
I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors, 
I see them raised, high with stones by the marge of restless 
oceans, that the dead men's spirits when they wearied of 
their quiet graves might rise up through the mounds and 
gaze on the tossing billows, and be refresh'd by storms, 
immensity, liberty, action. 

I see the steppes of Asia, 

I see the tumuli of Mongolia, I see the tents of Kalmucks 

and Baskirs, 
I see the nomadic tribes with herds of oxen and cows, 
I see the table-lands notch'd with ravines, I see the jungles 

and deserts, 
I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tail'dl 

sheep, the antelope, and the burrowing wolf. 



120 Leaves of Grass 

I see the highlands of Abyssinia, 

I see flocks of goats feeding, and see the fig-tree, tamarind, 

date, 
And see fields of teff-wheat and places of verdure and gold. 
I see the Brazilian Vaquero, 
I see the Bolivian ascending Mount Sorata, 
I see the Wacho crossing the plains, I see the incomparable 

rider of horses with his lasso on his arm, 
I see over the pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their 

hides. 

8 

I see the regions of snow and ice, 

I see the sharp-eyed Samoiede and the Finn, 

I see the seal-seeker in his boat poising his lance, 

I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge drawn by dogs, 

I see the porpoise-hunters, I see the whale-crews of the South 

Pacific and the North Atlantic, 
I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys, of Switzerland — I 

mark the long winters and the isolation. 



I see the cities of the earth and make myself at random a 
part of them, 

I am a real Parisian, 

I am a habitan of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constanti- 
nople, 

I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne, 

I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick, 

I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, 
Berne, Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence, 

I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw, or northward in 
Christiania or Stockholm, or in Siberian Irkutsk, or in 
some street in Iceland, 

I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again. 

10 

I see vapors exhaling from unexplored countries, 
I see the savage types, the bow and arrow, the poison'd splint, 
the fetich, and the obi. 

I see African and Asiatic towns, 

I see Algiers, Tripoli, Derne, Mogadore, Timbuctoo, Mon- 
rovia, 



Salut au Monde! 121 

I see the swarms of Pekin, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Calcutta, 
Tokio, 

I see the Kruman in his hut, and the Dahoman and Ashan- 
teeman in their huts, 

I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo, 

I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Khiva and those 
of Herat, 

I see Teheran, I see Muscat and Medina, and the interven- 
ing sands, I see the caravans toiling onward, 

I see Egypt and the Egyptians, I see the pyramids and obelisks, 

I look on chisell'd histories, records of conquering kings, dy- 
nasties, cut in slabs of sand-stone, or on granite-blocks, 

I see at Memphis mummy-pits containing mummies embalm'd, 
swathed in linen cloth, lying there many centuries, 

I look on the fall'n Theban, the large-ball'd eyes, the side- 
drooping neck, the hands folded across the breast. 

I see all the menials of the earth, labouring, 
I see all the prisoners in the prisons, 

I see the defective human bodies of the earth, 

The blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics, 

The pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of 

the earth, 
The helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women. 

I see male and female everywhere, 

I see the serene^ brotherhood of philosophs, 

I see the constructiveness of my race, 

I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race, 

I see ranks, colours, barbarisms, civilisations, I go among 

them, I mix indiscriminately, 
And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth. 

11 

You whoever you are 1 

You daughter or son of England! 

You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires 1 you Russ in 
Russia ! 

You dim-descended, black, divine-soul'd African, large, fine- 
headed, nobly- form'd, superbly destin'd, on equal terms 
with me! 

You Norwegian ! Swede ! Dane ! Icelander ! you Prussian ! 

You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese! 



122 Leaves of Grass 

You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France! 

You Beige! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands! (you stock 

whence I myself have descended) ; 
You stury Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer 

of Styria! 
You neighbour of the Danube! 
You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weserl you 

working-woman too ! 
You Sardinian ! you Bavarian! Swabian! Sax,on! 'Walla- 

chian ! Bulgarian ! 
You Roman ! Neapolitan ! you Greek ! 
You lithe matador in the arena at Seville! 
You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus I 
You Bokh horse-herd watching your mares and stallions 

feeding ! 
You beautiful-bodied Persian at full speed in the saddle shoot- 
ing arrows to the mark! 
You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of 

Tartary ! 
You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks! 
You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk to 

stand once on Syrian ground! 
You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah! 
You thoughtful Armenian pondering by some stream of the 
Euphrates! you peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you 
ascending Mount Ararat ! 
You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the 

minarets of Mecca! 
You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Bab-el-mandeb 

ruling your families and tribes ! 
You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, 

Damascus, or Lake Tiberias ! 
You Thibet trader on the wide inland or bargaining in the 

shops of Lassa! 
You Japanese man or woman ! you liver in Madagascar, Cey- 
lon, Sumatra, Borneo! 
All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, in- 
different of place ! 
All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of 

the sea! 
And you of centuries hence when you listen to me! 
And you each and everywhere whom I specify not, but in- 
clude just the same! 
Health to you ! good will to you all, from me and America sent 1 



Salut au Monde! 123 

Each of us inevitable, 

Each of us limitless — each of us with his or her right upon 

the earth, 
Each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth. 
Each of us here as divinely as any is here. 

12 

You Hottentot with clicking palate ! you woolly-hair'd hordes ! 

You own'd persons dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops ! 

You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive coun- 
tenances of brutes ! 

You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down 
upon for all your glimmering language and spirituality ! 

You dwarf 'd Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lapp! 

You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip, 
groveling, seeking your food ! 

You Caffre, Barber, Soudanese ! 

You haggard, uncouth, untutor'd Bedowee! 

You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo! 

You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you 
Feej eeman ! 

I do not prefer others so very much before you either, 

I do not say one word against you, away back there where 
you stand, 

(You will come forward in due time to my side). 



13 

My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around 

the whole earth, 
I have look'd for equals and lovers and found them ready for 

me in all lands, 
I think some divine rapport has equalised me with them. 

You vapours, I think I have risen with you, moved away to 
distant continents, and fallen down there, for reasons, 

I think I have blown with you you winds; 

You waters I have finger'd every shore with you, 

I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has 
run through, 

I have taken my stand en the bases of peninsulas and on the 
high embedded rocks, to cry thence: 



124 Leaves of Grass 

Salut au monde! 

What cities the light or warmth penetrates I penetrate those 

cities myself, 
All islands to which birds wing their way I wing my way 

myself. 

Toward you all, in America's name, 

I raise high the perpendicular hand, I make the signal, 

To remain after me in sight for ever, 

For all the haunts and homes of men. 



SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD 

i 

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, 

Healthy, free, the world before me, 

The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. 

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I imyself am good-fortune, 
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, 
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, 
Strong and content I travel the open road. 

The earth, that is sufficient, 

I do not want the constellations any nearer, 

I know they are very well where they are, 

I know they suffice for those who belong to them. 

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens, 

I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever 

I go, 
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them, 
I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.) 



You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not 

all that is here, 
I believe that much unseen is also here. 

Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor 

denial, 
The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas'd, the 

illiterate person, are not denied ; 
The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar's tramp, 

the drunkard's stagger, the laughing party of mechanics, 
The escaped youth, the rich person's carriage, the fop, the 

eloping couple, 
The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture 

into the town, the return back from the town, 

125 



126 Leaves of Grass 

They pass, I also pass, anything passes, none can be inter- 
dicted, 
None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me. 



You air that serves me with breath to speak! 

You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give 

them shape! 
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable 

showers ! 
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides! 
I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear 

to me. 

You flagg'd walks of the cities ! you strong curbs at the edges I 

You ferries ! you planks and posts of wharves ! you timber- 
lined sides ! you distant ships ! 

You rows of houses! you window-pierc'd facades! you roofs! 

You porches and entrances ! you copings and iron guards ! 

You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much I 

You doors and ascending steps ! you arches ! 

You grey stones of interminable pavements ! you trodden 
crossings ! 

From all that has touch'd you I believe you have imparted to 
yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me, 

From the living and the dead you have peopled your im- 
passive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident 
and amicable with me. 



The earth expanding right hand and left hand, 

The picU-e alive, every part in its best light, 

The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where 

it is not wanted, 
The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment 

of the road. 

O highway I travel, do you say to me, Do not leave me? 
Do you say, Venture not — if you leave me you are lost? 
Dc. you say, / am already prepared. I am well-beaten and un~ 
denied, adhere to met 



Song of the Open Road 127 

public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet 

I love you, 
YoTi express me better than I can express myself, 
You shall be more to me than my oem. 

1 think heroic deeds were all conceiv'd in the open air, and 

all free poems also, 
I think I could stop here myself and do miracles, 
I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and 

whoever beholds me shall like me. 
I think whoever I see must be happy. 



From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary 

lines, 
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, 
Listening to others, considering well what they say, 
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, 
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds 

that would hold me. 

I inhale great draughts of space, 

The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south 
are mine. 

I am larger, better than I thought, 

I did not know I held so much goodness. 

All seems beautiful to me, 

I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such 

good to me I would do the same to you, 
I will recruit for myself and you as I go, 
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go, 
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them, 
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me, 
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless 

me. 



Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear it would not 

amaze me, 
Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear'd it 

would not astonish me. 



128 Leaves of Grass 

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, 
It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the 
earth. 

Here a great personal deed has room, 

(Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men, 
Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law »nd mocks 
all authority and all argument against it). 

Here is the test of wisdom, 

Wisdom is not finally tested in schools, 

Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not 

having it, 
Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own 

proof, 
Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content, 
Is the certainty of reality and immortality of things, and the 

excellence of things ; 
Something there is in the float of the sight of things that 

provokes it out of the soul. 

\ T ow I re-examine philosophies and religions, 

They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all 

under the spacious clouds and along the landscape and 

flowing currents. 
Here is realisation, 

Here is a man tallied — he realises here what he has in him, 
The past, the future, majesty, love — if they are vacant of 

you, you are vacant of them. 

Only the kernel of every object nourishes ; 
Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me? 
Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you 
and me? 

Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously fashion'd, it is 

apropos ; 
Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers? 
Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls? 



Here is the efflux of the soul, 

The efflux of the soul comes from within through embowerd 
gates, ever provoking questions, 



Song of the Open Road 12c, 

These yearnings why are they; these thoughts in the dark-. 

ness why are they? 
Why are there men and women that while they are nigh m© 

the sunlight expands my blood? 
Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and 

lank? 
Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melod- 
ious thoughts descend upon me? 
(I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees 

and always drop fruit as I pass) ; 
What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers? 
What with some driver as I ride, on the seat by his side? 
What with some fisherman drawing his seine by the shore 

as I walk by and pause? 
What gives me to be free to a woman's and man's good-will ? 

what gives them to be free to mine? 

8 

The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness, 

I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times, 

Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged. 

Here rises the fluid and attaching character, 

The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweet- 
ness of man and woman, 

(The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter 
every day out of the roots of themselves, than it sprouts 
fresh and sweet continually out of itself), 

Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of 
the love of young and old, 

From it falls distill'd the charm that mocks beauty and attain- 
ments, 

Toward it heaves the shuddering, longing ache of contact. 



Allons ! whoever you are come travel with me ! 
Travelling with me you find what never tires. 

The earth never tires, 

The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is 

rude and incomprehensible at first, 
Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well 

envelnn'd. 



130 Leaves of Grass 

I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than 
words can tell. 

Allons ! we must not stop here, 

However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this 

dwelling we cannot remain here, 
However shelter'd this port and however calm these waters 

we must not anchor here, 
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are 

permitted to receive it but a little while. 

10 

Allons! the inducements shall be greater, 
We will sail pathless and wild seas, 

We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee 
clipper speeds by under full sail. 

Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements, 

Health, defiance, gaiety, self-esteem, curiosity; 

Allons ! from all f ormules ! 

From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests. 

The stale cadaver blocks up the passage — the burial waits no 
longer. 

Allons ! yet take warning ! 

He travelling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance, 

None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and 
health, 

Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself, 

Only those may come who come in sweet and determin'd 
bodies, 

No diseas'd person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is per- 
mitted here. 

(I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes, 

We convince by our presence.) 

11 

Listen ! I will be honest with you, 

I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes, 

These are the days that must happen to you: 

You shall not heap up what is call'd riches, 



Song of the Open Road 131 

You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve, 
You but arrive at the city to which you were destin'd, you 

hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call'd 

by an irresistible call to depart, 
You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of 

those who remain behind you, 
What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer 

with passionate kisses of parting, 
You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their 

reach'd hands toward you. 

12 

Allons! after the great Companions, and to belong to theml 
They too are on the road — they are the swift and majestic men 

— they are the greatest women, 
Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas, 
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land, 
Habitue of many distant countries, habitues of far-distant 

dwellings, 
Trusters of men and women, obserers of cities, solitary toilers, 
Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the 

shore, 
Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of 

children, bearers of children, 
Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down 

of coffins, 
Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious 

years each emerging from that which preceded it, 
Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse 

phases, 
Forth-steppers from the latent unrealised baby-days, 
Journeyers gaily with their own youth, journeyers with their 

bearded and well-grain'd manhood, 
Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass'd, content, 
Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or 

womanhood, 
Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of 

the universe, 
Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of 

death. 

13 

Allons ! to tkat which is endless as it was beginningless, 
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights. 



132 Leaves of Grass 

To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and 

nights they tend to, 
Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys, 
To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it, 
To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may 

reach it and pass it, 
To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for 

you, however long but it stretches and waits for you, 
To see no being, not God's or any, but you also go thither, 
To see no possession but you may possess it, enjoying ail 

without labour or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not 

abstracting one particle of it, 
To take the best of the farmer's farm and the rich man's 

elegant villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married 

couple, and the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens, 
To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass 

through, 
To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever 

you go, 
To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you en- 
counter them, to gather the love out of their hearts, 
To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you 

leave them behind you, 
To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as 

roads for travelling souls. 

All parts away for the progress of souls, 

All religion, all solid things, arts, governments — all that was or 
is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches 
and corners before the procession of souls along the grand 
roads of the universe. 

Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the 
grand roads of the universe, all other progress is the 
needed emblem and sustenance. 

Forever alive, forever forward, 

Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, 

feeble, dissatisfied, 
Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men, 
They go ! they go ! I know that they go, but I know not where 

they go, 
But I know that they go toward the best — toward something 

great. 



Song of the Open Road 133 

Whoever you are, come forth ! or man or woman come forth ! 
You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, 

though you built it, or though it has been built for you. 
Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen I 
It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it. 

Behold through you as bad as the rest, 

Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping of people, 

Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash'd and 

trimm'd faces, 
Behold a secret silent loathing and despair. 

No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession, 
Another self, a duplicate of every one, sulking and hiding it goes, 
Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite 

and bland in the parlours, 
In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly, 
Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the 

bed-room, everywhere, 
Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death 

under the breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones, 
Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and 

artificial flowers, 
Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself, 
Speaking of anything else but never of itself. 



14 

Allons! through struggles and wars! 

The goal that was named cannot be countermanded. 

Have the past struggles succeeded? 

What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature? 

Now understand me well — it is provided in the essence of 
things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, 
shall come forth something to make a greater struggle 
necessary. 

My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion, 
He going with me must go well arm'd, 

He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry 
enemies, desertions. 



134 Leaves of Grass 

IS 

Allons! the road is before us! 

It is safe — I have tried it — my own eet have tried it well — be 

not detain'd! 
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on 

the shelf unopen'd ! 
Let the tools remain in the workshop ! let the money remain 

unearn'd ! 
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher! 
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit ! let the lawyer plead in 

the court, and the judge expound the law. 

Camerado, I give you my hand ! 

I give you my love more precious than money, 

I give you myself before preaching or law ; 

Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with mef 

Shall we stick by each other as long as we live ? 



CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY 



Flood-tide below me ! I see you face to face ! 
Clouds of the west — sun there half an hour high — I see you 
also face to face. 

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how 
curious you are to me ! 

On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, re- 
turning home, are more curious to me than you suppose, 

And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are 
more to me, and more in my meditations, than you 
might suppose. 

2 

The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours 
of the day, 

The simple, compact, well-join'd scheme, myself disintegrated, 
every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme, 

The similitudes of the past and those of the future, 

The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hear- 
ings, on the walk in the street and the passage over the river, 

The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me faraway, 

The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and 
them, 

The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others. 

Others will enter the gates of the ferry and xross from shore 

to shore, 
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide, 
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, 

and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east, 
Others will see the islands large and small ; 
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun 

half an hour high, 
A hundred years hence, or even so many hundred years hence, 

others will see them, 
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the 

falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide. 

135 



j%6 Leaves of Grass 

3 

It avails not, time nor place — distance avail not, 

I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever 

so many generations hence, 
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt, 
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a 

crowd, 
Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the 

bright flow, I was refresh'd, 
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift 

current, I stood yet was hurried, 
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the 

thick-stemm'd pipes of steamboats, I look'd. 

I too many and many a time cross'd the river of old, 
Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the 

air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies, 
Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and 

left the rest in strong shadow, 
•Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward 

the south, 
Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water, 
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams, 
Look'd at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape 

of my head in the sunlit water, 
Look'd on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward, 
Look'd on the vapour as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet, 
Look'd toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving, 
Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me, 
Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at 

anchor, 
The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars, 
The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender 

serpentine pennants, 
The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their 

pilot-houses, 
The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl 

of the wheels, 
The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset, 
The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the 

frolicsome crests and glistening, 
The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the grey walls 

of the granite storehouses by the docks, 



Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 137 

On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely 
flank'd on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the be- 
lated lighter, 

On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys 
burning high and glaringly into the night, 

Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and' 
yellow light over the tops of houses, and down into the 
clefts of streets. 

4 

These and all else were to me the same as they are to you, 
I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid 

river, 
The men and women I saw were all near to me, 
Others the same — others who look back on me because I look'd 

forward to them 
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night). 



What is it then between us? 

What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? 

Whatever it is, it avails not — distance avails not, and place 

avails not, 
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine, 
I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in 

the waters around it, 
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me, 
In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon 

me, 
In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they 

came upon me, 
I too had been struck from the float for ever held in solution, 
I too had receiv'd identity by my body, 
That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I 

knew I should be of my body. 



It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, 
The dark threw its patches down upon me also, 
The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious, 
My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality 
meagre ? 



i38 



Leaves of Grass 



Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil, 

I am he who knew what it was to be evil, 

I too knitted the old knot of contrariety, 

Elabb'd, blush'd resented, lied, stole, grudg'd, 

Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak, 

Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,, 

The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me, 

The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, 

not wanting, 
Refusals, hates, postponments, meanness, laziness, none of 

these wanting, 
Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest, 
Was called by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young 

men as they saw me approaching or passing, 
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent lean- 
ing of their flesh against me as I sat, 
Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public as- 
sembly, yet never told them a word, 
Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, 

gnawing, sleeping, 
Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress, 
The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as 

we like. 
Or as small as we like, or both great and small. 



Closer yet I approach you, 

What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you — I 

laid in my stores in advance, 
I consider'd long and seriously of you before you were born. 

Who was to know what should come home to me? 
Who knows but I am enjoying this? 

Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking 
at you now, for all you cannot see me? 



Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than 

mast-hemm'd Manhattan? 
River and sunset and scallop-edg'd waves of flood-tide? 
The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the 

twilight, and the belated lighter? 



Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 139 

What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and 
with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my 
nighest name as 1 approach? 

What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or 
man that looks in my face? 

Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you ? 

We understand then do we not? 

What I promis'd without mentioning it , have you not accepted ? 
What the study could not teach — what the preaching could not 
accomplish is accomplish'd, is it not? 



Flow on, river ! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb- 
tide! 
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves ! 
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendour 

me, or the men and women generations after me! 
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers! 
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta ! stand up, beautiful hills 

of Brooklyn! 
Throb, baffled and curious brain ! throw out questions and 

answers ! 
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution ! 
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or 

public assembly! 
Sound out, voices of young men ! loudly and musically calV 

me by my nighest name! 
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or 

actress ! 
Play the role, the role that is great or small according as 

one makes it! 
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown 

ways be looking upon you ; 
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet 

haste with the hasting current; 
Fly on, sea-birds ! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high 

in the air; 
Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till 

all downcast eyes have time to take it from you! 
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or 

any one's head, in the sunlit water! 



14.0 Leaves of Grass 

Come on, ships from the lower bay ! pass up or down, white- 

sail'd schooners, sloops, lighters! 
Flaunt away, flags of all nations ! be duly lower'd at sunset I 
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows 

at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of 

the houses! 
Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are, 
You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul, 
About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our 

divinest aromas, 
Thrive, cities — bring your freight, bring your shows, ample 

and sufficient rivers, 
Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual, 
Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting. 

You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful 
ministers, 

We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate hence- 
forward, 

Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold your- 
selves from us, 

We use you, and do not cast you aside — we plant you perma- 
nanently within us, 

We fathom you not — we love you — there is perfection in you 
also, 

You furnish your parts toward eternity, 

Great or small, your furnish your parts toward the soul. 



SONG OF THE ANSWERER 

1 

Now list to my morning's romanza, I tell the signs of the 

Answerer, 
To the cities and farms I sing as they spread in the sunshine 

before me. 

A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother, 
How shall the young man know the whether and when of his 

brother ? 
Tell him to send me the signs. 

And I stand before the young man face to face, and take his 
right hand in my left and his left hand in my right hand, 

And I answer for his brother and for men, and I answer for 
him that answers for all, and send these signs. 

Him all wait for, him all yield up to, his word is decisive and 

final, 
Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves as 

amid light, 
Him they immerse and he immerses them. 

Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape^ 

people, animals, 
The profound earth and its attributes and the unquiet ocean 

(so tell I my morning's romanza), 
All enjoyments and properties and money, and whatever 

money will buy, 
The best farms, others toiling and planting and he unavoidably 

reaps, 
The noblest and costliest cities, others grading and building 

and he domiciles there, 
Nothing for any one but what is for him. near and far are 

for him, the ships in the offing, 
The perpetual shows and marches on land are for him if they 

are for anybody. 

141 



142 Leaves of Grass 

He puts things in their attitudes, 

He puts to-day out of himself with plasticity and love, 
He places his own times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and 
sisters, associations, employment, politics, so thct the rest 
never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them. 

He is the Answerer, 

What can be answer'd he answers, and what cannot beanswer'd 
he shows how it cannot be answer'd. 

A man is a summons and challenge, 

(It is vain to skulk— do you hear that mocking and laughter? 

do you hear the ironical echoes?) . 

Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, 

beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction, 
He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up 

and down also. 

Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go 
freshly and gently and safely by day or by night, 

He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the 
prying of hands on the knobs. 

His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more wel- 
come or universal than he is, 
The person he favours by day or sleeps with at night is blessed. 

Exery existence has its idiom, everything has an idiom and 

tongue, 
He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men 

and any man translates, and any man translates himself 

also, , , . 

One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he 
sees how they join. 

He says indifferently and alike How are you, friend? to the 

President at his levee. 
And he says Good-day, my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the 

sugar-field, 
And both understand him and know that his speech is right. 

He walks with perfect ease in the capitol, 
He walks among the Congress, and one Representatives says 
to another, Here is our equal appearing and new. 



Song of the Answerer 143 

Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic, 

And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors 

that he has follow'd the sea, 
And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for 

an artist, 
And the labourers perceive he could labour with them and 

love them, 
No matter what the work is, that he is the one to fellow it or 

has follow'd it, 
No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers 

and sisters there. 

The English believe he comes of their English stock, 
A Jew to the Jew he seems, a Russ to the Russ, usual and 
near, removed from none. 

Whoever he looks at in the traveller's coffee-house claims him, 
The Italian or Frenchman is sure, the German is sure, the 

Spaniard is sure, and the island Cuban is sure, 
The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the 

Mississippi or St. Lawrence or Sacramento, or Hudson or 

Paumanok sound, claims him. 

The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood, 
The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see 

themselves in the ways of him, he strangely transmutes 

them, 
They are not vile any more, they hardly know themselves they 

are so grown. 



The indications and tally of time, 

Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs, 

Time, always without break, indicates itself in parts, 

What always indicates the poet is the crowd of the pleasant 

company of singers, and their words, 
The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light 

or dark, but the words of the makef of poems are the 

general light and dark, 
The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality, 
His insight and power encircle things and the human race, 
He is the glory and extract thus far of things and of th* 
human race. 



144 Leaves of Grass 

The singers do not beget, only the Poet begets, 

The singers are welcom'd, understood, appear often enough, 

but rare has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth 

of the maker of poems, the Answerer 
(Not every century nor every five centuries has contain'd such 

a day, for all its names). 

The singers of successive hours of centuries may have 
ostensible names, but the name of each of them is one of 
the singers, 

The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, sweet- 
singer, night-singer, parlour-singer, love-singer, weird- 
singer, or something else. 

All this time and at all times wait the words of true poems, 

The words of true poems do not merely please, 

The true poets are not followers of beauty but the august 

masters of beauty; 
The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of 

mothers and fathers, 
The words of true poem? are the tuft and final applause of 

science. 

Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health, 

rudeness of body, withdrawnness, 
Gaiety, sun-tan, air-sweetness, such are some of the words of 

poems. 

The sailor and traveller underlie the maker of poems, the 

Answerer, 
The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist, 

all these underlie the maker of poems, the Answerer. 

The words of the true poems give you more than poems, 
They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, 

war, peace, behaviour, histories, essays, daily life, and 

everything else, 
They balance ranks, colours, races, creeds, and the sexes, 
They do not seek beauty, they are sought, 
For ever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, 

longing, fain, love-sick. 

They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather 
the outset, 



Song of the Answerer 145 

They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full, 
Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of 

stars, to learn one of the meanings, 
To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the cease- 
less rings and never be quiet again. 



OUR OLD FEUILLAGE 

Always our old feuillage! 

Always Florida's green peninsula — always the priceless delta of 

Louisiana — always the cotton-rields of Al-abama and Texas, 
Always California's golden hills and hollows, and the silver 

mountains of New Mexico — always soft-breath'd Cuba, 
Always the vast slope drain'd by the Southern sea, inseparable 

with the slopes drain'd by the Eastern and Western seas, 
The area the eighty-third year of these States, the three and a 

half millions of square miles, 
The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the 

main, the thirty thousand miles of river navigation, 
The seven millions of distinct families and the same number 

of dwellings — always these, and more, branching forth 

into numberless branches, 
Always the free range and diversity — always the continent of 

Democracy ; 
Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travellers, 

Kanada, the snows ; 
Always these compact lands tied at the hips with the belt 

stringing the huge oval lakes; 
Always the West with strong native persons, the increasing 

density there, the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, 

scorning invaders ; 
All sights, South, North, East — all deeds, promiscuously done 

at all times, 
All characters, movements, growths, a few noticed, myriads 

unnoticed, 
Through Mannahatta's streets I walking, these things gathering, 
On interior rivers by night in the glare of pine knots, steam- 
boats wooding up, 
Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the 

valleys of the Potomac and Rappahannock, and the val- 
leys of the Roanoke and Delaware, 
In their northerly wilds beasts of prey haunting the Adiron- 

dacks, the hills, or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink, 
In a lonesome inlet a sheldrake lost from the flock, sitting on 

the water rocking silently, 

146 



Our Old Feuillage 147 

In farmers' barns oxen in the stable, their harvest labour done, 
they rest standing, they are too tired, 

Afar on arctic ice the she-walrus lying drowsily while her 
cubs play around, 

The hawk sailing where men have not yet sail'd, the farthest 
polar sea, ripply, crystalline, open, beyond the floes, 

White drift spooning ahead where the ship in the tempest dashes, 

On solid land what is done in cities as the bells strike midnight 
together, 

In primitive woods the sounds there also sounding, the howl of 
the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the hoarse bellow 
of the elk, 

In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead lake, in 
summer visible through the clear waters, the great trout 
swimming, 

In lower latitudes in warmer air in the Carolinas the large 
black buzzard floating slowly high beyond the tree-tops, 

Below, the red cedar festoon'd with tylandria, the pines and 
cypresses growing out of the white sand that spreads far 
and flat, 

Rude boats descending the big Pedee, climbing plants, para- 
sites with colour'd flowers and berries enveloping huge trees, 

The waving drapery on the live-oak trailing long and low, 
noiselessly waved by the wind, 

The camp of Georgia wagoners just after dark, the supper* 
fires and the cooking and eating by whites and negroes, 

Thirty or forty great wagons, the mules, cattle, horses, feed- 
ing from troughs, 

The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old syca- 
more-trees, the flames with the black smoke from the 
pitch-pine curling and rising; 

Southern fishermen fishing, the sounds and inlets of North 
Carolina's coast, the shad-fishery and the herring-fishery, 
the large sweep-seines, the windlasses on shore work'd by 
horses, the clearing, curing, and packing-houses; 

Deep in the forest in piney woods turpentine dropping from 
the incisions in the trees, there are the turpentine works, 

There are the negroes at work in good health, the ground in 
all directions is cover'd with pine straw; 

In Tennessee and Kentucky slaves busy in the coalings, at the 
forge, by the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking, 

In Virginia, the planter's son returning after a long absence, 
joyfully welcom'd and kiss'd by the aged mullato nurse, 



148 



Leaves of Grass 



On rivers boatmen safely moor'd at nightfall in their boats 
under shelter of high banks, 

Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or 
fiddle, others sit on the gunwale smoking and talking; 

Late in the afternoon the mockin,g-bird, the American mimic, 
singing in the Great Dismal Swamp. 

There are the greenish waters, the resinous odour, the plen- 
teous moss, the cypress-tree, and the juniper-tree; 

Northward, young men of Mannahatta, the target company 
from an excursion returning home at evening, the musket- 
muzzles all bear bunches of flowers presented by women ; 

Children at play, or on his father's lap a young boy fallen 
asleep (how his lips move! how he smiles in his sleep!) ; 

The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the 
Mississippi, he ascends a knoll and sweeps his eyes around ; 

California life, the miner, bearded, dress'd in his rude costume, 
the stanch California friendship, the sweet air, the g;raves 
one in passing meets solitary just aside the horse-path; 

Down in Texas the cotton-field, the negro-cabins, drivers driv- 
ing mules or oxen before rude carts, cotton bales piled 
on banks and wharves ; 

Encircling all, vast-darting up and wide, the American Soul, 
with equal hemispheres, one Love, one Dilation or Pride; 

In arriere the peace-talk with the Iroquois the aborigines, the 
calumet, the pipe of good-will, arbitration, and indorse- 
ment, 

The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then 
toward the earth, 

The drama of the scalp-dance enacted with painted faces and 
guttural exclamations, 

The setting out of the war-party, the long and stealthy march, 

The single file, the swinging hatchets, the surprise and slaugh- 
ter of enemies; 

All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes of these States, 
reminiscences, institutions, 

All these States compact, every square mile of these States 
without excepting a particle; 

Me pleas'd, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok's 
fields, 

Observing the spiral flight of two little yellow butterflies 
shuffling between each other, ascending high in the air, 

The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects, the fall traveller 
southward but returning northward early in the spring, 



Our Old Feuillage 149 

The country boy at the close of the day driving the herd of 
cows and shouting to them as they loiter to browse by 
the roadside, 

The city wharf, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, 
New Orleans, San Francisco, 

The departing ships when the sailors heave at the capstan; 

Evening — me in my room — the setting sun, 

The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing 
the swarm of flies, suspended, balancing in the air in the 
centre of the room, darting athwart, up and down, casting 
swift shadows in specks on the opposite wall where the 
shine is; 

The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds 
of listeners, 

Males, females, immigrants, combinations, the copiousness, the 
individuality of the States, each for itself — the money- 
makers, 

Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces, the windlass, lever, 
pulley, all certainties, 

The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity, 

In space the sporades, the scatter'd islands, the stars — on the 
firm earth, the lands, my lands, 

O lands! all so dear to me — what you are (whatver it is), 
I putting it at random in these songs, become a part 
of that, whatever it is, 

Southward there, I screaming, with wings slow flapping, with 
the myriads of gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida, 

Otherways there atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio 
Grande, the Neuces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red 
River, the Saskatchawan or the Osage, I with the spring 
waters laughing and skipping and running, 

Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, 
I with parties of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek 
worms and aquatic plants, 

Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from pierc- 
ing the crow with its bill, for amusement — and I tri- 
umphantly twittering, 

The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to re- 
fresh themselves, the body of the flock feed, the sentinels 
outside move around with erect heads watching, and are 
from time to time reliev'd by other sentinels — and I feed- 
ing and taking turns with the rest, 



i 5 o 



Leaves of Grass 



In Kanadian forests the moose, large as an ox, corner'd by 
hunters, rising desperately on his hind-feet, and plunging 
with his fore-feet, the hoofs as sharp as knives — and I, 
plunging at the hunters, corner'd and desperate, 

In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, store-houses, and 
the countless workmen working in the shops, 

And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof — and no less in 
myself than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself, 

Singing the song of These, my ever-united lands — my body 
no more inevitably united, part to part, and made out 
of a thousand diverse contributions one identity, any 
more than my lands are inevitably united and made One 
identity ; 

Nativities, climates, the grass of the great pastoral Plains, 

Cities, labours, death, animals, products, war, good and evil — 
these me, 

These affording, in all their particulars, the old feuillage to 
me and to America, how can I do less than pass the clew 
of the union of them, to afford the like to you? 

Whoever you are ! how can I but offer you divine leaves; 
that you also be eligible as I am? 

How can I but as here chanting, invite you for yourself to 
collect bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of these 
States? 



A SONG OF JOYS 

O to make the most jubilant song! 

Full of music — full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! 

Full of common employments — full of grain and trees. 

O for the voices of animals — O for the swiftness and balance 

of fishes ! 
O for the dropping of raindrops in a song! 
O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song! 

joy of my spirit — it is uncaged — it. darts like lightning! 
It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time, 

1 will have thousands of globes and all time. 

O the engineer's joys! to go with a locomotive! 

To hear the hiss of steam,, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle,, 

the laughing locomotive! 
To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance. 

O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides ! 

The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds, the moist 

fresh stillness of the woods, 
The exquisite smell of the earth at daybreak, and all through 

the forenoon. 

O the horseman's and horsewoman's joys! 

The saddle, the gallop, the pressure upon the seat, the cool 
gurgling by the ears and hair. 

the fireman's joys ! 

1 hear the alarm at dead of night, 

I hear bells, shouts ! I pass the crowd, I run ! 

The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure. 

O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena 

in perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet 

his opponent. 
O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the 

human soul is capable of generating and emitting in 

-steady and limitless floods. 

151 



152 Leaves of Grass 

O the mother's joys! 

The watching, the endurance, the precious love, the anguish, 
the patiently yielded life. 

O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation, 
The joy of soothing and pacifying, the joy of concord and 
harmony. 

O to go back to the place where I was born, 

To hear the birds sing once more, 

To ramble about the house and barn and over the fields once 

more, 
And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more. 

to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along 

the coast, 

To continue and be employ'd there all my life, 

The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed 
at low water, 

The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam- 
fisher ; 

1 come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel- 

spear, 

Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats, 

I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettle- 
some young man; 

In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on 
foot on the ice — I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice, 

Behold me well-clothed going gaily or returning in the after- 
noon, my brood of tough boys accompanying me, 

My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with 
no one else so well as they love to be with me, 

By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me. 

Another time in warm weather out in a boat, to lift the 
lobster-pots where they are sunk with heavy stones (I 
know the buoys), 

the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water 

as I row just before sunrise toward the buoys, 

1 pull the wicker pots up slantingly, the dark green lobsters 

are desperate with their claws as I take them out, I 
insert wooden pegs in the joints of their pincers, 

I go to all the places one after another, and then row back to 
the shore, 



A Song of Joys 153 

There in a huge kettle of boiling water the lobsters shall be 
boil'd till their colour becomes scarlet. 

Another time mackerel-taking, 

Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to 

fill the water for miles; 
Another time fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake bay, I one 

of the brown-faced crew ; 
Another time trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with 

braced body, 
My left foot is on the gunwale, my right arm throws far out 

the coils of slender rope, 
In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty 

skiffs, my companions. 

O boat on the rivers, 

The voyage down the St. Lawrence, the superb scenery, the 
steamers, 

The ships sailing, the Thousand Islands, the occasional timber- 
raft and the raftsmen with 1 ng-reaching sweep-oars, 

The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when 
they cook supper at evening. 

(O something pernicious and dread! 

Something far away from a puny and pious life! 

Something unproved! something in a trance! 

Something escaped from the anchorage and driving free.) 

O to work in mines, or forging iron, 

Foundry casting, the foundry itself, the rude high roof, the 

ample and shadow'd space, 
The furnace, the liquid pour'd out and running. 

O to resume the joys of the soldier! 

To feel the presence of a brave commanding officer — to feel 

his sympathy ! 
To behold his calmness — to be warm'd in the rays of his smile! 
To go to battle — to hear the bugles play and the drums beat! 
To hear the crash of artillery — to see the glittering of the 

bayonets and musket-barrels in the sun ! 
To see the men fall and die and not complain ! 
To taste the savage taste of blood— to be so devilish ! 

To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy! 



154 Leaves of Grass 



the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise again 1 

1 feel the ship's motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes 

fanning me, 
I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, There — 

she blows! 
Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest — we 

descend, wild with excitement, 
I leap in the lower'd boat, we row toward our prey where 

he lies, 
We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass, 

lethargic, basking, 
I see the harpooner standing up, I see the weapon dart from 

his vigorous arm ; 

swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, set- 

tling, running to windward, tows me, 
Again I see him rise to breathe, we now close again, 

1 see a lance driven through his side, press'd deep, turn'd in 

the wound, 

Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving 
him fast, 

As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles nar- 
rower and narrower, swifly cutting the water — I see 
him die, 

He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and 
then falls flat and still in the bloody foam. 

O the old manhood of me, my noblest joy of all ! 
My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard. 
My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of 
my life. 

ripen'd joy of womanhood! O happiness at last! 

1 am more than eighty years of age, I am the most venerable 

mother, 
How clear is my mind — how all people draw nigh to me! 
What attractions are these beyond any before? what bloom 

more than the bloom of youth? 
What beauty is this that descends upon me and rises out of me? 

O the orator's joys ! 

To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from 

the ribs and throat. 
To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself, 
To lead America — to quell America with a great tongue. 



A Song of Joys 155 

O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself, receiving iden- 
tity through materials and loving them, observing char- 
acters and absorbing them, 

My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hear- 
ing, touch, reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and 
the like, 

The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses 
and flesh, 

My body done with materials my sight done with my mate- 
rial eyes, 

Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material 
eyes which finally see, 

Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, 
shouts embraces, procreates. 

O the farmer's joys ! 

Ohioan's, Illinoisian's, Wisconsinese', Kanadian's, Iowan's, 

Kansian's, Missourian's, Oregonese' joys ! 
To rise at peep of day and pass forth nimbly to work, 
To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops, 
To plough land in the spring for maize, 
To train orchards, to graft the trees, to gather apples in the 

fall. 

O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along 

shore, 
To splash the water ! to walk ankle-deep, or race naked along 

the shore. 

to realise space! 

The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds, 

To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying 

clouds, as one with them. 
O the joy of a manly self -hood ! 
To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant 

known or unknown, 
To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, 
To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye, 
To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest, 
To confront with your personality all the other personalities 

of the earth. 

Know'st thou the excellent joys of youth? 
Joys of the dear companions and of the merry word and 
laughing face? . 



1 5 6 



Leaves of Grass 



Joy of the glad light-beaming day, joy of the wide-breath'd 

games ? 
Joy of sweet music joy of the lighted ball-room and the 

dancers ? 
Joy of the plenteous dinner, strong carouse, and drinking? 

Yet O my soul supreme! 

Know'st thou the joys of pensive thought? 

Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender, gloomy heart? 

Joys of the solitary walk, the spirit bow'd yet proud, the 

suffering and the struggle? 
The agonistic throes, the ecstasies, joys of the solemn musings 

day or night? 
Joys of the thought of Death, the great spheres, Time and 

Space ? 
Prophetic joys of better, loftier love's ideals, the divine wife, 

the sweet, eternal, perfect comrade? 
Joys all thine own undying one, joys worthy thee, O soul. 

O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave, 

To meet life as a powerful conqueror, 

No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms, 

To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground, 

proving my interior soul impregnable, 
And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me. 

For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating — the joy of death! 

The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few 
moments, for reasons, 

Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, 
render'd to powder, or buried, 

My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres, 

My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifica- 
tions, further offices, eternal uses of the earth. 

O to attract by more than attraction ! 

How it is I know not — yet behold ! the something which obeys 

none of the rest, 
It is offensive, never defensive — yet how magnetic it draws. 
O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted 1 
To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand ! 
To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face! 
To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns 

with perfect nonchalance! 
To be indeed a God! 



A Song of Joys 157 

O to sail to sea in a ship ! 

To leave this steady unendurable land, 

To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks 

and the houses, 
To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering a 

ship, 
To sail and sail and sail ! 

O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys! 

To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on ! 

To be a sailor of the worjd bound for all ports, 

A ship itself (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun an<i 

air), 
A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys. 



SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE 

i 

Weapon shapely, naked, wan, 

Head from the mother's bowels drawn, 

Wooded flesh and metal bone, limb only one and lip only one, 

Grey-blue leaf by red-heat grown, * helve produced from a 

little seed sown, 
Resting the grass amid and upon, 
To be lean'd and to lean on. 

Strong shapes and attributes of strong shapes, masculine 

trades, sights, and sounds, 
Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music, 
Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of 

the great organ. 



Welcome are all earth's lands, each for its kind, 

Welcome are lands of pine and oak, 

Welcome are lands of the iemon and fig, 

Welcome are land of gold, 

Welcome are lands of wheat and maize, welcome those of 

the grape, 
Welcome are lands of sugar and rice, 
Welcome the cotton-lands, welcome those of the white potato 

and sweet potato, 
Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies, 
Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings, 
Welcome the measureless grazing-lands, welcome the teem- 
ing soil of orchards, flax, honey, hemp ; 
Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands, 
Lands rich as land of gold or wheat and fruit lands, 
Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores, 
Lands of coal, copper, led, tin, zinc, 
Lands of iron — lands of the make of the axe. 

158 



Song of the Broad- Axe 159 

3 

The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it, 

The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space clear'd 

for a garden, 
The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves after the 

storm is lull'd, 
The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the 

sea, 
The thought of ships struck in the storm and put on their 

beam ends, and the cutting away of masts, 
The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashion'd houses 

and barns, 
The remember'd print or narrative, the voyage at a venture 

of men, families, goods, 
The disembarkation, the founding of a new city, 
The voyage of those who sought a New England and found 

it, the outset anywhere, 
The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette, 
The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags; 
The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons, 
The beauty of wood-boys, and wood-men with their cleai 

untrimm'd faces, 
The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely en 

themselves, 
The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the 

boundless impatience of restraint, 
The loose drift of character, the inkling through random 

types, the solidification ; 
The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schoon- 
ers and sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer, 
Lumbermen in their winter camp, daybreak in the woods, 

stripes of snow on the limbs of trees, the occasional 

snapping, 
The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merry song, the 

natural life of the woods, the strong day's work, 
The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, 

the bed of hemlock-boughs and the bear-skin; 
The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere, 
The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising, 
The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their places, lay- 
ing them regular, 
Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises according 

as they were prepared, 



160 Leaves of Grass 

The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the men, 

their curv'd limbs, 
Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins, holding 

on by posts and braces, 
The hook'd arm over the plate, the other arm wielding the 

axe, 
The floor-men forcing the planks close to be nail'd, 
Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers, 
The echoes resounding through the vacant building; 
The huge storehouse carried up in the city well under way, 
The six framing-men, two in the middle and two at each end, 

carefully bearing on their shoulders a heavy stick for a 

cross-beam, 
The crowded line of masons with trowels in their right hands 

rapidly laying the long side-wall, two hundred feet from 

front to rear, 
The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the 

trowels striking the bricks, 
The bricks one after another each laid so workmanlike in its 

place, and set with a knock of the trowel handle, 
The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and 

the steady replenishing by the hod-men ; 
Spar-makei s in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown 

apprentices, 
The swing of their axes on the square-hew'd log shaping it 

toward the shape of a mast, 
The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the 

pine, 
The butter-colour'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, 
The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy 

costumes, 
The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats, 

stays against the sea; 
The city fireman, the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the 

close-pack'd square, 
The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping 

and daring, 
The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in 

line, the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water, 
The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets, the bringing to bear of 

the hooks and ladders and their execution, 
The crash and cut-away of connecting wood-work, or through 

floors if the fire smoulders under them, 



Song of the Broad-Axe 161 

The crowd with their lit faces watching, the glare and dens* 

shadows ; 
The forger at his forge-furnace and the user of iron after him. 
The maker of the axe large and small, and the welder and 

temperer, 
The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel and trying 

the edge with his thumb, 
The one who clean-shapes the handle and sets it firmly in 

the socket; 
The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also, 
The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers, 
The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice, 
The Roman lictors preceding the consuls, 
The antique European warrior with his axe in combat, 
The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head, 
The death-howl, the limpsy tumbling body, the rush of friend 

and foe thither, 
The siege of revolted lieges determin'd for liberty, 
The summons to surrender, the battering at castle gates, the 

truce and parley, 
The sack of an old city in its time, 
The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and 

disorderly, 
Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness, 
Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of 

women in the gripe of brigands, 
Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old per- 
sons despairing, 
The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds, 
The list of all executive deeds and words just or unjust, 
The power of personality just or unjust. 



Muscle and pluck for ever ! 

What invigorates life invigorates death, 

And the dead advance as much as the living advance, 

And the future is no more uncertain than the present, 

For the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much 

as the delicatesse of the earth and of man, 
And nothing endures but personal qualities. 

What do you think endures? 

Do you think a great city endures ? 



162 Leaves of Grass 

Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? 
or the best built steamships? 

Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d'oeuvres of en- 
gineering, forts, armaments? 

Away ! these are not to be cherish'd for themselves, 

They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for 

them, 
The show passes, all does well enough of course, 
All does very well till one flash of defiance. 

A great city is that which has the greatest men and women, 
If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the 
whole world. 



The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretch'd 

wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits or produce merely, 
Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers or the 

anchor-lifters of the departing, 
Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings or shops 

selling goods from the rest of the earth, 
Nor the place of the best libraries and schools, nor the place 

where money is plentiest, 
Nor the place of the most numerous population. 

Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and 

bards, 
Where the city stands that is belov'd by these, and loves them 

in return and understands them, 
Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words 

and deeds, 
Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place, 
Where the men and women think lightly of the laws, 
Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases, 
Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending au- 
dacity of elected persons, 
Where fierce men and women pour forth as the sea to the 

whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript waves, 
Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of 

inside authority, 
Where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and President, 

Mayor, Governor and what not, are agents for pay, 



Song of the Broad-Axe 163 

Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to 

depend on themselves, 
Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs, 
Where speculations on the soul are encouraged, 
Where women walk in public processions in the streets the 

same as the men, 
Where they enter the public assembly and take places the 

same as the men ; 
Where the city of the faithfullest friends stands, 
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands, 
Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands, 
Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands, 
There the great city stands. 



How beggarly appear arguments before a dehant deed! 
How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a 
man's or woman's look. 

All waits or goes by default till a strong being appears ; 

A strong being is the proof of the race and of the ability 

of the universe, 
When he or she appears materials are overaw'd, 
The dispute on the soul stops, 
The old customs and phrases are confronted, turn'd back, or 

laid away. 

What is your money-making now ? what can it do now ? 
What is your respectability now? 

What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions, statute- 
books, now? 
Where are your jibes of being now? 
W T here are your cavils about the soul now? 



A sterile landscape covers the ore, there is as good as tin 

best for all the forbidding appearance, 
There is the mine, there are the miners, 
The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplish'd, the ham- 

mersmen are at hand with their tongs and hammers, 
What a-Vavs served and alwavs serves is at hand. 



164 



Leaves of Grass 



Than this nothing has better served, it has served all, 

Served the fluent—tongued and subtle-sensed Greek, and long 

ere the Greek, 
Served in building the buildings that last longer than any, 
Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient Hindustanee, 
Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi, served those 

whose relics remain in Central America, 
Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with unhewn pil- 
lars and the druids, 
Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the snow- 

cover'd hills of Scandinavia, 
Served those who time out of mind made on the granite 

walls rough sketches of the sun, moon, stars, ships, ocean 

waves, 
Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths, served the 

pastoral tribes and nomads, 
Served the long distant Kelt, served the hardy pirates of the 

Baltic, 
Served before any of those the venerable and harmless men 

of Ethiopia, 
Served the making of helms for the galleys of pleasure and 

the making of those for war, 
Served all great works on land and all great works on the sea, 
For the mediaeval ages and before the mediaeval ages, 
Served not the living only then as now, but served the dead. 

8 

I see the European headsman, 

He stands mask'd, clothed in red, with huge legs and strong 

naked arms, 
And leans on a ponderous axe. 

(Whom have you slaughter'd lately, European headsman? 

Whose is that blood upon you so wet and sticky?) 

I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs, 

I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts, 

Ghosts of dead lords, uncrown'd ladies, impeach'd ministers, 

rejected kings, 
Rivals, traitors, prisoners, disgraced chieftains and the rest. 

I see those who in any land have died for the good cause, 
The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never run out, 
(Mind you, O foreign kings, O priests, the crop shall never 
run out). 



Song of the Broad- Axe 165 

I see the blood wash'd entirely away from the axe, 
Both blade and helve are clean, 

They spirt no more the blood of European nobles, they clasp 
no more the necks of queens. 

I see the headsman withdraw and become useless, 

I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy, I see no longer any 

axe upon it, 
I see the mighty friendly emblem of the power of my own 

race, the newest, largest race. 



(America ! I do not vaunt my love for you, 
I have what I have.) 

The axe leaps! 

The solid forest gives fluid utterances, 

They tumble forth, they rise and form, 

Hut, tent, landing, survey, 

Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade, 

Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable, 

Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, 

library 
Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, turret, porch, 
Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, 

mallet, wedge, rounce, 
Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor, 
Work-box, chest, string'd instrument, boat, frame, and what 

not, 
Capitols of States and capitol of the nation of States, 
Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans or for the 

poor or sick, 
Manhattan steamboats and clippers taking the measure of all 

seas. 

The shapes arise! 

Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users and all 

that neighbours them, 
Cutters down of wood and haulers of it to the Penobscot or 

Kennebec, 
Dwellers in cabins among the Californian mountains or by 

the little lakes, or on the Columbia, 



1 66 Leaves of Grass 

Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande, 
friendly gatherings, the characters and fun, 

Dwellers along the St. Lawrence, or north in Kanada, or down 
by the Yellowstone, dwellers on coasts and off coasts, 

Self-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through 
the ice. 

The shapes arise! 

Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets, 

Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads, 

Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, 
arches, 

Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake and canal craft, 
river craft, 

Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western 
seas, and in many a bay and by-place, 

The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the hack- 
matack-roots for knees, 

The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the 
workmen busy outside and inside, 

The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the 
adze, bolt, line, square, gauge, and bead-plane. 



10 

The shapes arise! 

The shape measur'd, saw'd, jack'd, join'd, stain'd, 

The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud, 

The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the post* 

of the bride's bed, 
The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers be 

neath, the shape of the babe's cradle, 
The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers' 

feet, 
The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the 

friendly parents and children, 
The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man 

and woman, the roof over the well-married young man 

and woman, 
The roof over the supper joyously cook'd by the chaste wife, 

and joyously eaten by the chaste husband, content after 

his day's work. 



Song of the Broad- Axe 167 

The shapes arise! 

The shape of the prisoner's place in the court-room, and of 

him or her seated in the place, 
The shape of the liquor-bar lean'd against by the young rum- 
drinker and the old rum-drinker, 
The shape of the shamed and angry stairs trod by sneaking 

footsteps, 
The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous unwholesome 

couple, 
The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish winnings 

and losings, 
The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sentencec 

murderer, the murderer with haggard face am' 

pinion'd arms, 
The sheriff at hand with his deouties, the silent and white - 

lipp'd crowd, the dangling of the rope. 

j 

The shapes arise! 

Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances, 
The door passing the dissever'd friend flush'd and in haste, 
Th^ door that admits good news and bad news, 
The door whence the son left home confident and puff'd up, 
The door he enter'd again from a long and scandalous ab- 
sence, diseas'd, broken down, without innocence, without 
means. 

11 

Her shape arises, 

She less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever, 

The gross and soil'd she moves among do not make her gross 

and soil'd, 
She knows the thoughts as she passes, nothing is conceal'd 

from her, 
She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor, 
She is the best belov'd, it is without exception, she has no 

reason to fear and she does not fear, 
Oaths, quarrels, hiccupp'd songs, smutty expressions, are idle 

to her as she passes, 
She is silent, she is possess'd of herself, they do not offend her, 
She receives them as the laws of Nature receive them, she 

is strong, 
She too is a law of Nature — there is no law stronger than 

she is. 



1 68 Leaves of Grass 

12 

The main shapes arise! 

Shapes of Democracy total, result of centuries, 

Shapes ever projecting other shapes, 

Shapes of turbulent manly cities, 

Shapes of friends and home-givers of the whole earth, 

Shapes bracing the earth and braced with the whole earth. 



SONG OF THE EXPOSITION 

1 

(Ah. little recks the labourer, 

How near his work is holding him to God, 

The loving Labourer through space and time.) 

After all not to create only, or found only, 
But to bring perhaps from afar what is already founded, 
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free, 
To fill the gross the torpid bulk with vital religious fire, 
Not to repel or destroy so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate 
To obey as well as command, to follow more than to lead, 
These also are the lessons of our New World; 
While how little the New after all, how much the Old, OW 
World! 

Long and long has the grass been growing, 
Long and long has the rain been falling, 
Long has the globe been rolling round. 



Come Muse migrate from Greece and Ionia, 

Cross out please those immensely overpaid accounts, 

That matter of Troy and Achilles' wrath, and Aeneas', Odys- 
seus' wanderings, 

Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your 
snowy Parnassus, 

Repeat at Jerusalem, place the notice high on Jaffa's gate 
and on Mount Moriah, 

The same on the walls of your German, French, and Spanish 
castles, and Italian collections, 

For know a better, fresher, busier sphere, a wide, untried 
domain awaits, demands you. 



Responsive to our summons. 

Or rather to her long-nurs'd inclination, 



170 Leaves of Grass 

Join'd with an irresistible, natural gravitation, 

She comes ! I hear the rustling of her gown, 

I scent the odour of her breath's delicious fragrance, 

I mark her step divine, her curious eyes a-turning, rolling, 

Upon this very scene. 

The dame of dames ! can I believe then, 

Those ancient temples, sculptures classic, could none of them 

retain her? 
Nor shades of Virgil and Dante, nor myriad memories, poems, 

old associations, magnetise and hold on to her? 
But that she's left them all— and here? 

Yes, if you will allow me to say so, 
I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see her, 
The same undying soul of earth's, activity's, beauty's, hero- 
ism's expression, 
Out from her evolutions hither come, ended the strata of 

her former themes, 
Hidden and cover'd by to-day's, foundation of to-day's, 
Ended, deceas'd through time, her voice by Castaly's fountain, 
Silent the broken-lipp'd Sphynx in Egypt, silent all those 

century-baffling tombs, 
Ended for aye the epics of Asia's, Europe's helmeted warriors, 

ended the primitive call of the muses, 
Calliope's call for ever closed, Clio, Melpomene, Thalia dead, 
Ended the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana, ended the 

quest of the holy Graal, 
Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind, extinct, 
The Crusaders' streams of shadowy midnight troops sped 

with the sunrise, 
Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone, Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver 

gone, 
Palmerin, ogre, departed, vanish'd the turrets that Usk from 

its waters reflected, 
Arthur vanish'd with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot and 

Galahad, all gone, dissolv'd utterly like an exhalation ; 
Pass'd ! pass'd ! for us, for ever pass'd, that once so mighty 

world, now void, inanimate, phantom world, 
Embroider'd, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous 

legends, myths, 
Its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and 

courtly dames, 
Pass'd to its charnel vault, coffin'd with crown and armour on, 



Song of the Exposition 171 

Blazon'd with Shakespeare's purple page, 
And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme. 

1 say I see, my friends, if you do not, the illustrious emigre 
(having it is true in her day, although the same, changed, 
journey 'd considerable), 
Making directly for this rendezvous, vigorously clearing a 

path for herself, striding through the confusion, 
By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay'd, 
Bluff'd not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilisers, 
Smiling and pleas'd with palpable intent to stay, 
She's here, install'd amid the kitchen ware! 



But hold — don't I forget my manners? 

To introduce the stranger (what else indeed do I live to chant 

for?) to thee Columbia; 
In liberty's name welcome immortal ! clasp hands, 
And ever henceforth sisters d.nr be both. 

Fear not, O Muse ! truly new ways and days receive, sur- 
round you, 
I candidly confess a queer, queer rice, of novel fashion, 
And yet the same old human race, the same within, without, 
Faces and hearts the same, feelings the same, yearnings the 

same, 
The same old love, beauty and use the same. 



We do not blame thee, elder World, nor really separate our- 
selves from thee, 

(Would the son separate himself from the father?) 

Looking back on thse, seeing thee to thy duties, grandeurs, 
through the past ages bending, building, 

We build to ours to-day. 

Mightier than Egypt's tombs, 
Fairer than Grecia's, Roma's temples, 
Prouder than Milan's statued, spired cathedral, 
More picturesque than Rhenish castle-keeps, 
We plan even now to raise, beyond them all, 
The great cathedral sacred industry, no tomb, 
A keep for life for practical invention. 



172 Leaves of Grass 

As in a waking vision, 

E'en while I chant I see it rise, I scan and prophesy outside 

and in, 
Its manifold ensemble. 

Around the palace, loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet, 

Earth's modern wonder, history's seven outstripping, 

High rising tier on tier with glass and iron fagades, 

Gladdenmg the sun and sky, enhued in cheerfullest hues, 

Bronze, lilac, robin's-egg, marine, and crimson, 

Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner 

Freedom, 
The banners of the States and flags of every land, 
A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser palaces shall cluster. 

Somewhere within their walls shall all that forwards perfect 

human life be started, 
Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited. 

Not only all the world of works, trade, products, 

But all the workmen of the world here to be represented. 

Here shall you trace in flowing operation 

In every state of practical, busy movement, the rills of civil- 
isation, 

Materials here under your eye shall change their shape as if 
by magic, 

The cotton shall be pick'd almost in the very field, 

Shall be dried, clean'd, ginn'd, baled, spun into thread and 
cloth before you, 

You shall see hands at work at all the old processes and all 
the new ones, 

You shall see the various grains and how flour is made and 
then bread baked by the bakers, 

You shall see the crude ores of California and Nevada pass- 
ing on and on till they become bullion, 

You shall watch how the printer sets type, and learn what 
a composing-stick is, 

You shall mark in amazement the Hoe press whirling its 
cylinder, shedding the printed leaves steady and fast, 

The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail, shall be created 
before you. 

In large calm halls, a stately museum shall teach you the 
infinite lessons of minerals, 



Song of the Exposition 173 

In another, woods, plants, vegetation shall be illustrated — in 
another, animals, animal life and development. 

One stately house shall be the music house, 
Others for other arts — learning, the sciences, shall all be here, 
None shall be slighted, none but shall here be honour'd, help'd, 
exampled. 



(This, this and these, America, shall be your pyramids and 

obelisks, 
Your Alexandrian Pharos, gardens of Babylon, 
Your temple at Olympia.) 

The male and female many labouring not, 
Shall ever here confront the labouring many, 
With precious benefits to both, glory to all, 
To thee America, and thee eternal Muse. 

And here shall ye inhabit powerful Matrons I 

In your vast state vaster than all the old, 

Echoed through long, long centuries to come, 

To sound of different, prouder songs, with stronger themes, 

Practical, peaceful life, the people's life, the People themselves,. 

Lifted, illumin'd, bathed in peace — elate, secure in peace. 



Away with themes of war! away with war itself? 

Hence from my shuddering sight to never more return that 

show of blacken'd, mutilated corpses ! 
That hell unpent and raid of blood, fit for wild tigers or fotf 

lop-tongued wolves, not reasoning men, 
And in its stead speed industry's campaigns, 
With thy undaunted armies, engineering, 
Thy pennants labour, loosen'd to the breeze, 
Thy bugles sounding loud and clear. 

Away with old romance! 

Away with novels, plots and plays of foreign courts, 

Away with love verses sugar'd in rhyme, the intrigues, amours 

of idlers, 
Fitted for only banquets of the night where dancers to late 

music slide, 



174 Leaves of Grass 

The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few, 
With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers. 

To you, ye reverent sane sisters, 

I raise a, voice for far superber themes for poets and for art, 

To exalt the present and the real, 

To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and 

trade, 
To sing in songs how exercise and chemical life are never 

to be baffled, 
To manual work for each and all, to plough, hoe, dig 
To plant and tend the tree, the berry, vegetables, flowers, 
For every man to see to it that he really do something, for 

every woman too; 
To use the hammer and the saw (rip, or cross-cut), 
To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting, 
To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter, 
To invent a little, something ingenious, to aid the washing, 

cooking, cleaning, 
And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them themselves. 

[ say I bring thee Muse to-day and here, 

All occupations, duties broad and close, 

Toil, healthy toil and sweat, endless, without cessation, 

The old, old practical burdens, interests, joys, 

The family, parentage, childhood, husband and wife, 

The house-comforts, the house itself and all its belongings, 

Food and its preservation, chemistry applied to it, 

Whatever forms the average, strong, complete, sweet-blooded 

man or woman, the perfect longeve personality, 
And helps its present life to health and happiness, and shapes 

its soul, 
For the eternal real life to come. 

With latest connections, works, the inter-transportation of the 

world, 
Steam-power, the great express lines, gas, petroleum, 
These triumphs of our time, the Atlantic's delicate cable, 
The Pacific railroad, the Suez Canal, the Mont Cenis and 

Gothard and Hoosac tunnels, the Brooklyn Bridge, 
This earth all spann'd with iron rails, with lines of steam- 
ships threading every sea, 
Our own rondure, the current globe I bring. 



Song of the Exposition 175 

8 

And thou America, 

Thy offspring towering e'er so high, yet higher Thee above 

all towering, 
With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand Law; 
Thou Union holding all, fusing, absorbing, tolerating all, 
Thee, ever thee, I sing. 

Thou, also thou, a World, 

With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant, 
Rounded by thee in one — one common orbic language, 
One common indivisible destiny for All. 

And by the spells which ye vouchsafe to those your ministers 

in earnest, 
I here personify and call my themes, to make them pass 

before ye. 

Behold, America! (and thou, ineffable guest and sister!) 
For thee come trooping up thy waters and thy lands; 
Behold ! thy fields and farms, thy far-off woods and mountains, 
As in procession coming. 

Behold, the sea itself, 

And on its limitless, heaving breast, the ships; 

See, where their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the 

green and blue, 
See, the steamers coming and going, steamers in or out of port, 
See, dusky and undulating, the long pennants of smcke. 

Behold, in Oregon, fsr in the north and west, 

Or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy cheerful axemen, 

Wielding all day their axes. 

Behold, on the lakes, thy pilots at their wheels, thy oarsmen, 
How the ash writhes under those muscular arms! 

There by the furnace, and there by the anvil, 
Behold thy sturdy blacksmiths swinging their sledges, 
Overhand so stead}', overhand they turn and fall with joyous 

clank, 
Like a tumult of laughter. 



176 



Leaves of Grass 



Mark the spirit of invention everywhere, thy rapid patents, 

Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising, 

See, from their chimneys how the tall flame-fires stream, 

Mark, thy interminable farms, North, South, 

Thy wealthy daughter-states, Eastern and Western, 

Thy varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia, 

Texas, and the rest, 
Thy limitless crops, grass, wheat, sugar, oil, corn, rice, hemp, 

hops, 
Thy barns all fill'd, the endless freight-train and the bulging 

storehouse, 
The grapes that ripen on thy vines, the apples in thy orchards. 
Thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes, thy coal, thy 

gold and silver, 
The inexhaustible iron in thy mines. 

All thine, O sacred Union 1 

Ships, farms, shops, barns, factories, mines, 

City and State, North, South, item and aggregate, 

We dedicate, dread Mother, all to theel 

Protectress absolute thou ! bulwark of all ! 

For well we know that while thou givest each and all (gen* 

erous as God), 
Without thee neither all nor each, nor land, home, 
Nor ship, nor mine, nor any here this day secure, 
Nor aught, nor any day secure. 



And thou, the Emblem waving over all! 
Delicate beauty, a word to thee (it may be salutary), 
Remember thou hast not always been as here to-day so com- 
fortably ensovereign'd, 
In other scenes than these have I observ'd thee flag, 
Not quite so trim and whole and fresly blooming in folds of 

stainless silk, 
But I have seen thee bunting, to tatters torn upon thy 

splinter'd staff, 
Or clutch'd to some young colour-bearer's breast with desper- 
ate hands, 
Savagely struggled for, for life or death, fought over long, 
*Mid cannons' thunder-crash and many a curse and groan and 
yell, and rifle-volleys cracking sharp, 



Song of the Exposition 177 

And moving masses as wild demons surging, and lives as 

nothing risk'd, 
For thy mere remnant grimed with dirt and smoke and 

sopp'd in blood, 
For sake of that, my beauty, and that thou mi^ht'st dally as 

now secure up there, 
Many a good man have I seen go under. 

Now here and these and hence in peace, all thine, O Flag! 
And here and hence for thee, O universal Musel and thou 

for them! 
And here and hence, O Union, all the work and workmen 

thine ! 
None separate from thee — henceforth One only, we and thou 
(For the blood of the children, what is it, only the blood 

maternal ? 
And lives and works, what are they all at last, except the roads 

to faith and death?) 

While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear 

Mother, 
We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in thee; 
Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross or 

lucre — it is for thee, the soul in thee, electric, spiritual 1 
Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in thee! cities and 

States in thee! 
Our freedom all in thee! our very lives in thee! 



SONG OF THE REDWOOD-TREE 



A California song, 

A prophecy and indirection, a thought impalpable to breathe 

as air, 
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing, or hamadryads de« 

parting, 
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky, 
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the redwood forest dense. 

Farewell my brethren 

Farewell O earth and sky, farewell ye neighbouring waters, 

My time has ended, my term has come. 

Along the northern coast, 

Just bacK from the rock-bound shore and the caves, 

In the saline air from the sea in the Mendocino country, 

With the surge for base and accompaniment low and hoarse, 

With crackling blows of axes sounding musically driven by 

strong arms, 
Riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes, there in the 

redwood forest dense, 
[ heard the mighty tree its death-chant chanting. 

The choppers heard not, the camp shanties echoed not, 

The quick-ear'd teamsters and chain and jack-screw men 

heard not, 
As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand 

years to join the refrain, 
But in my soul I plainly heard. 

Murmuring out of its myriad leaves, 
Down from its lofty top rising two hundred feet high, 
Out of its stalwart trunk and iimbs, out of its foot-thick bark, 
That chant of the seasons and time, chant not of the past only 
but the future 

You untold life of me, 

And all you venerable and innocent joys, 

178 



Song of the Redwood Tree 179 

Perennial hardy life of me with joys 'mid rain and many a 
summer sun, 

And the white snows and night and the wild winds; 

O the great patient rugged joys, my soul's strong joys unreck'd 
by man 

{For know I bear the soul befitting me, I too have conscious- 
ness, identity, 

And all the rocks and mountains have, and all the earth), 

Joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine, 

Our time, our term has come. 

Nor yield we mournfully majestic brothers, 

We who have grandly fill'd our time; 

With Nature's calm content, with tacit huge delight, 

We welcome what we wrought for through the past, 

And leave the field for them. 

For them predicted long, 

For a superber race, they too to grandly fill their time, 

For them we abdicate, in them ourselves ye forest kings! 

In them these skies and airs, these mountain peaks, Shasta. 

Ncvadas, 
These huge precipitous cliffs, this amplitude, these valleys, far 

Yosemitc, 
To be in them absorb'd, assimilated. 

Then to a loftier strain, 
Still prouder, more ecstatic rose the chant, 
As if the heirs, the deities of the West, 
Joining with master-tongue bore part. 

Not wan from Asia's fetiches, 

Nor red from Europe's old dynastic slaughter-house 

{Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars 

and scaffolds everywhere), 
But come from Nature's long and harmless throes, peacefully 

buildcd thence, 
These virgin lands, lands of the Western shore, 
To the new culminating man, to you, the empire new, 
You promis'd long, we pledge, we dedicate. 

You occult deep volitions, 

You average spiritual manhood, purpose of all, pois'd on your- 
self, giving not taking law, 



180 Leaves of Grass 

You womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, whence 
life and love and aught that comes from life and love, 

you unseen moral essence of all the vast materials of America 
{age upon age working in death the same as life), 

You that, sometimes known, oftcner unknown, really shape 
and mould the New World) adjusting it to Time and 
Space, 

You hidden national will lying in your abysms, conceal'd but 
ever alert, 

You past and present purposes tenaciously pursued, maybe un- 
conscious of yourselves, 

Unswervd by all the passing errors, perturbations of the 
surface; 

You vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts, 
statutes, literatures, 

Here build your homes for good, establish here, these areas 
entire, lands of the Western shore, 

We pledge, we dedicate to you. 

For man of you, your characteristic race, 

Here may he hardy, szvect, gigantic grow, here tower propor- 
tionate to Nature, 

Here climb the vast pure spaces unconfined, uncheck'd by wall 
or roof, 

Here laugh with storm or sun, here joy, here patiently inure, 

Here heed himself, unfold himself (not others' formulas heed), 
here fill his time, 

To duly fall, to aid, unreck'd at last, 

To disappear, to serve. 

Thus on the northern coast, 

In the echo of teamsters' calls and the clinking chains, and 

the music of choppers' axes, 
The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek, 

the groan, 
Such words combined from the redwood-tree, as of voices 

ecstatic, ancient and rustling, 
The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing, 
All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving, 
From the Cascade range to the Wahsatch, or Idaho far, or 

Utah, 
To the deities of the modern henceforth yielding, 
The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity, 

the settlements, features all, 
In the mendocino woods I caught. 



Song of the Redwood Tree 181 

2 

The flashing and golden pageant of California, 

The sudden and gorgeous drama, the sunny and ample lands, 

The long and varied stretch from Puget Sound to Colorado 

south, 
Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air, valleys an^ 

mountain cliffs, 
The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow, the silent, 

cyclic chemistry, 
The slow and steady ages plodding, the unoccupied surface 

ripening, the rich ores forming beneath; 
At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession, 
A swarming and busy race settling and organising everywhere, 
Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out 

to the whole world, 
To India and China and Australia and the thousand island 

paradises of the Pacific, 
Populous cities, the latest inventions, the steamers on the rivers, 

the railroads, with many a thrifty farm, with machinery, 
And wool and wheat and the grape, and diggings of yellow 

gold. 



But more in you than these, lands of the Western shore 
(These but the means, the implements, the standing-ground), 
I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of 

years, till now deferr'd, 
Promis'd to be fulfill'd, our common kind, the race. 

The new society at last, proportionate to Nature, 

In man of you, more than your mountain peaks or stalwai 

trees imperial, 
In woman more, far more, than all your gold or vines, ci 

even vital air. 

Fresh come, to a new world indeed, yet long prepared, 
I see the genius of the modern, child of the real and ideal, 
Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, 

heir of the past so grand, 
To build a grander future. 



A SONG FOR OCCUPATIONS 



A song for occupations ! 

In the labour of engines and trades and the labour of Held9 

I find the developments, 
And find the eternal meanings. 

Workmen and Workwomen! 

Were all educations practical and ornamental well display'd 
out of me, what would it amount to? 

W r ere I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise states- 
man, what would it amount to? 

Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would 
that satisfy you? 

The learn'd, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual terms, 
A man like me and never the usual terms. 

Neither a servant nor a master I, 

I take no sooner a large price than a small price, I will have 

my own whoever enjoys me, 
I will be even with you and you shall be even with me. 

If you stand at work in a shop, I stand as nigh as the nighest in 

the same shop, 
If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend I de- 
mand as good as your brother or dearest friend, 
If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I 

must be personally as welcome, 
If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for 

your sake, 
If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you 

think, I cannot remember my own foolish and outlaw'd 

deeds? 
If you carouse at the table I carouse at the opposite side of 

the table, 
If you meet some stranger in the streets and love him or her, 

why I often meet strangers in the street and love them. 
Why what have you thought of yourself? 
Is it you then that thought yourself less? 

182 



A Song for Occupations 183 

Is it you that thought the President greater than you? 

Or the rich better off than you ? or the educated wiser than you? 

(Because you are greasy or pimpled, or were once drunk, or a 

thief, 
Or that you are diseas'd, or rheumatic, or a prostitute, 
Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no scholai 

and never saw your name in print, 
Do you give in that you are any less immortal?) 



Souls of men and women 1 it is not you I call unseen, unheard, 

untouchable and untouching, 
It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle 

whether you are alive or no, 
I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns. 

Grown, half -grown and babe, of this country and ftvery 
country, indoors and outdoors, one just as much as the 
other, 1 see, 

And all else behind or through them. 

The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband, 
The daughter, and she is just as good as the son, 
The mother, and she is every bit as much as the father. 

Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades, 
Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working oi> 

farms, 
Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants, 
All these I see, but nigher and farther the same I see, 
None shall escape me and none shall wish to escape me. 

1 bring what you much need yet always have, 
Not money, amours, dress, eating, erudition, but as good, 
I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, 
but offer the value itself. 

There is something that comes to one now and perpetually, 
Jt is not what is printed, preach'd, discussed, it eludes dis- 
cussion and print, 
It is not to be put in a book, it is not in this book, 
It is for you whoever you are, it is no farther from you than 

your hearing and sight are from you, 
It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest, it is ever pro- 
voked by them. . 



1 84 



Leaves of Grass 



You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it, 
You may read the President's message and read nothing about 

it there, 
Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury 

department, or in the daily papers or weekly papers. 
Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any 

accounts of stock. 



The sun and stars that float in the open air, 

The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the drift of 

them is something grand, 
I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is 

happiness, 
And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation 

or bon-mot or reconnoissance, 
And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well 

for us, and without luck must be a failure for us, 
And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain 

contingency. 

The light and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, 

the greed that with perfect complaisance devours all things, 
The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys 

and sorrows, 
The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees, and the 

wonders that fill each minute of time for ever, 
What have you reckon'd them for, camerado? 
Have you reckon'd them for your trade or farm-work? or for 

the profits of your store? 
Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman's 

leisure, or a lady's leisure? 

Have you reckon'd that the landscape took substance and 
form that it might be painted in a picture? 

Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs 
sung? 

Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and harmoni- 
ous combinations and the fluids of the air, as subjects for 
the savans? 



A Song for Occupations 185 

Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts? 
Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy 

names ? 
Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables, or 

agriculture itself? 

Old institutions, these arts, libraries, legends, collections, and 

the practice handed along in manufactures, will we rate 

them so high? 

Will we rate our cash and business high? I have no objection, 

I rate them as high as the highest — then a child born of a 

woman and man I rate beyond all rate. 

We thought our Union grand, and our Constitution grand, 
I do not say they are not grand and good, for they are, 
I am this day just as much in love with them as you, 
Then I am in love with You, and with all my fellows upon 
the earth. 

We consider bibles and religions divine — I do not say they are 

not divine, 
I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of 

you still, 
It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life, 
Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the 

earth, than they are shed out of you. 



The sun of all known reverence I add up in you whoever 

you are, 
The President is there in the White House for you, it is not 

you who are here for him, 
The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for 

them, 
The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you, 
Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the 

going and coming of commerce and mails, are all for you. 

List close my scholars dear, 

Doctrines, politics and civilisation exurge from you, 
Sculpture and monuments and anything inscribed anywhere 
are tallied in you. 



1 86 Leaves of Grass 

The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records 
reach is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same, 

If you were not breathing and walking here, where would 
they all be? 

The most renown'd poems would be ashes, orations and plays 
would be vacuums. 

All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it 
(Did you think it was in the white or grey stone? or the lines 
of the arches and cornices?) 

All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded 

by the instruments, 
It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the 

beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing 

his sweet romanza, nor that of the men's chorus, nor that 

of the women's chorus, 
It is nearer and farther than they. 



Will the whole come back then? 

Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-glass? 

is there nothing greater or more? 
Does all sit there with you, with the mystic unseen soul? 

Strange and hard that paradox true I give, 
Objects gross and the unseen soul are one. 

House-building, measuring, sawing the boards, 

Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roof- 
ing, shingle-dressing, 

Ship- joining, dock-building, fish-curing, flagging of sidewalks 
by flaggers, 

The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and 
brick-kiln — 

Coal-mines and all that is down there, the lamps in the dark- 
ness, echoes, songs, what meditations, what vast native 
thoughts looking through smutch'd faces, 

Iron-workers, forge-fires in the mountains or by river-banks, 
men around feeling the melt with huge crowbars, lumps of 
ore, the due combining of ore, limestone, coal, 

The blast-furnace and the puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at 
the bottom of the melt at last, the rolling-mill, the stumpy 
bars of pig-iron, the strong clean-shaped T-rail for railroads, 



A Song for Occupations 187 

Oil-works, silk-works, white-lead-works, the sugar-house, 
steam-saws, the great mills and factories, 

Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for facades or window or 
door-lintels, the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect 
the thumb, 

The caking-iron, the kettle of boiling vault-cement, and the 
fire under the kettle, 

The cotton-bale, the stevedore's hook, the saw and buck of ths 
sawyer, the mould of the moulder, the working-knife of 
the butcher, the ice-saw, and all the work with ice, 

The work and tools of the rigger, grappler, sail-maker, block- 
maker, 

Goods of gutta-percha, papier-mache, colours, brushes, brush- 
making, glazier's implements, 

The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner's ornaments, the 
decanter and glasses, the shears and flat-iron, 

The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, 
the counter and stool, the writing-pen of quill or metal, 
the making of all sorts of edged tools, 

The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, everything xhat is 
done by brewers, wine-makers, vinegar-makers, 

Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, 
distilling, sign-making, lime-burning, cotton-picking, 
electroplating, electrotyping, stereotyping, 

Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines, plough- 
ing-machines, thrashing-machines, steam wagons, 

The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray, 

Pyrotechny, letting off colour'd fireworks at night, fancy fig- 
ures and jets; 

Beef on the butcher's stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, 
the butcher in his killing-clothes, 

The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, the 
scalder's tube, gutting, the cutter's cleaver, the packer's 
maul, and the plenteous winter-work of pork-packing, 

Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice, the barrels 
and the half and quarter barrels, the loaded barges, the 
high piles on wharves and levees, 

The men and the work of the men on ferries, railroads, 
coasters, fish-boats, canals; 

The hourly routine of your own or any man's life, the shop, 
yard, store, or factory, 

These shows all near you by day and night — workman I who- 
ever you are, your daily life 1 



1 88 Leaves of Grass 

In that and them the heft of the heaviest — in that and them 

far more than you estimated (and far less also), 
In them realities for you and me, in them poems for you and 

me, 
In them, not yourself — you and your soul enclose all things, 

regardless of estimation, 
In them the development good — in them all themes, hints, 

possibilities. 

I do not affirm that what you see beyond is futile, I do not 

advise you to stop, 
I do not say leadings you thought great are not great, 
But I say that none lead to greater than these lead to. 



Will you seek afar off? you surely come back at last, 

In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as 

the best, 
In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest, 
Happiness, knowledge, not in another place but this place, not 

for another hour but this hour, 
Man in the first you see or touch, always in friend, brother, 

nighest neighbour — woman in mother, sister, wife, 
The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in 

poems or anywhere, 
You workwomen and workmen of these States having «your 

own divine and strong life, 
And all else giving place to men and women like you. 

When the psalm sings instead of the singer, 

When the script preaches instead of the preacher, 

When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that 
carved the supporting desk, 

When I can touch the body of books by night or by day, and 
when they touch my body back again, 

When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman 
and child convince, 

When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night- 
watchman's daughter, ( 

When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my 
friendly companions, 

I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as 
I do of men and women like you. 



A SONG OF THE ROLLING 
EARTH 



A song of the rolling earth, and of words according, 

Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright 

lines? those curves, angles, dots? 
No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the 

ground and sea, 
They are in the air, they are in you. 

Were you thinking that those were the words, those delicious 

sounds out of your friends' mouths? 
No, the real words are more delicious than they. 

Human bodies are words, myriads of words 

(In the best poems reappears the body, man's or woman's, 

well-shaped, natural, gay, 
Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need 

of shame). 

Air, soil, water, fire — those are words, 

I myself am a word with them — my qualities interpenetrate 

with theirs — my name is nothing to them, 
Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what 

would air, soil, water, fire, know of my name? 

A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are 

words, sayings, meanings, 
The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and 

women, are sayings and meanings also. 

The workmanship of souls is by those inaudible words of the 

earth, 
The masters know the earth's words and use them more than 

audible words. 

Amelioration is one of the earth's words, 
The earth neither lags nor hastens, 

189 



190 Leaves of Grass 

It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the 

jump, 
It is not half beautiful only, defects and excrescences show 

just as much as perfections show. 

The earth does not withhold, it is generous enough, 

The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so con- 

ceal'd either. 
They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print, 
They are imbued through all things conveying themselves 

willingly, 
Conveying a sentiment and invitation, I utter and utter, 
I speak not, yet if you hear me not of what avail am I to you? 
To bear, to better, lacking these of what avail am I? 

(Accouche! accouchez ! 

Will you rot your own fruit in yourself there? 

Will you squat and stifle there?) 

The earth does not argue, 

Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, 

Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, 

Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, 

Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out, 

Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts none out. 

The earth does not exhibit itself nor refuse to exhibit itself, 

possesses still underneath, 
Underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of heroes, 

the wail of slaves, 
Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the dying, laughter of 

young people, accents of bargainers, 
Underneath these possessing words that never fail. 

To her children the words of the eloquent dumb great mother 
never fail. 

The true words do not fail, for motion does not Sail and re- 
flection does not fail, 

Also the day and night do not fail, and the voyage we pursue 
does not fail. 

Of the interminable sisters, 

Of the ceaseless cotillons of sisters, 



A Song of the Rolling Earth 191 

Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and 

younger sisters, 
The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest. 

With her ample back towards every beholder, 

With the fascinations of youth and the equal fascinations of 

age, 
Sits she whom I too love like the rest, sits undisturb'd, 
Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, 

while her eyes glance back from it, 
Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none, 
Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face. 

Seen at hand or seen at a distance, 

Duly the twenty-four appear in public every day, 

Duly approach and pass with their companions or a companion, 

Looking from no countenances of their own, but from the 

countenances of those who are with them, 
From the countenances of children or women or the manly 

countenance, 
From the open countenances of animals or from inanimate 

things, 
From the landscape or waters or from the exquisite apparition 

of the sky. 
From our countenances, mine and yours, faithfully returning 

them, 
Every day in public appearing without fail, but never twice 

with the same companions. 

Embracing man, embracing all, proceed the three hundred and 
sixty-five resistlessly round the sun; 

Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow close three hun- 
dred and sixty-five offsets of the first, sure and necessary 
as they. 

Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading, 

Sunshine, storm, cold, heat, for ever withstanding, passing, 

carrying, 
The soul's realisation and determination still inheriting, 
The fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing, 
No balk retarding, no anchor anchoring, on no rock striking, 
Swift, glad, content, unbereav'd, nothing losing, 
Of all abie and ready at any time to give strict account, 
The divine ship sails the divine sea. 



192 Leaves of Grass 

2 

Whoever you are ! motion and reflection are especially for you, 
The divine ship sails the divine sea for you. 

Whoever you are! you are he or she whom the earth is 

solid and liquid, 
You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky, 
For none more than you are the present and the past, 
For none more than you is immortality. 

Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word 
of the past and present, and the true word of immortality; 
No one can acquire for another — not one, 
No one can grow for another — not one. 

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him, 
The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him, 
The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him, 
The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him, 
The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him, 
The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him — it can- 
not fail, 
The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and 

actress not to the audience, 
And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his 
own, or the indication of his own. 



I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who 

shall be complete, 
The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who 

remains jagged and broken. 

I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate 
those of the earth, 

There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate 
the theory of the earth, 

No politics, song, religion, behaviour, or what not, is of ac- 
count, unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth, 

Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of 
the earth. 

I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that 
which responds love, 

It is that which contains itself, which never invites and never 
refuses. 



A Song of the Rolling Earth 193 

I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words, 
All merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings 

of the earth, 
Toward him who sings the songs of the body and of the truths 

of the earth, 
Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print 

cannot touch. 

I swear I see what is better than to tell the best, 
It is always to leave the best untold. 

When I undertake to tell the best I find I cannot, 
My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, 
My breath will not be obedient to its organs, 
I become a dumb man. 

The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow, all or any is best 
It is not what you anticipated, it is cheaper, easier, nearer, 
Things are not dismiss'd from the places they held before, 
The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before, 
Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as 

before, 
But the soul is also real, it too is positive and direct. 
No reasoning, no proof has establish'd it, 
Undeniable growth has establish'd it. 



These to echo the tones of souls and the phrases of souls, 
(If they did not echo the phrases of souls what were they then? 
If they had not reference to you in especial what were they 
then?) 

I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that 

tells the best, 
1 will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best 

untold. 

Say on, sayers ! sing on, singers! 
Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth! 
Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost, 
It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use, 
When the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects 
shall appear. 



194 Leaves of Grass 

l swear to you the architects shall appear without fail, 
I swear to you they will understand you and justify you, 
The greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and 

encloses all and is faithful to all, 
He and the rest shall not forget you, they shall perceive that 

you are not an iota less than they. 
You shall be fully glorified in them. 



YOUTH, DAY, OLD AGE, AND NIGHT 

Youth, large, lusty, loving — youth full of grace, force, fascina- 
tion, 

Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal 
grace, force, fascination? 

Day full-blown and splendid — day of the immense sun, action, 

ambition, laughter, 
The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep and 

restoring darkness. 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 

SONG OF THE UNIVERSAL 



Come, said the Muse, 

Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted, 

Sing me the universal. 

In this broad earth of ours, 
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, 
Enclosed and safe wtihin its central heart, 
Nestles the seed perfection. 

By every life a share or more or less, 

None born but it is born, conceal'd or unconceal'd the seed is 
waiting. 

2 

Lo ! keen-eyed towering science, 

As from tall peaks the modern overlooking, 

Successive absolute fiats issuing. 

Yet again, lo ! the soul, above all science, 

For it has history gather'd like husks around the globe, 

For it the entire star-myriads roll through the sky. 

In spiral routes by long detours, 
(As a much-tacking ship upon the sea), 
For it the partial to the permanent flowing, 
For it the real to the ideal tends. 

For it the mystic evolution, 

Not the right only justified, what we call evil also justified. 

Forth from their masks, no matter what, 
From the huge festering trunk, from craft and guile and tears, 
Health to emerge and joy, joy universal. 
Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow, 
Out of the bad majority, the varied countless frauds of men 
and states, 

195 



196 



Leaves of Grass 



Electric, antiseptic yet, cleaving, suffusing all, 
Only the good is universal. 



Over the mountain-growths disease and sorrow, 
An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering, 
High in the purer, happier air. 



From imperfection's murkiest cloud, 

Darts always forth one ray of perfect light, 

One flash of heaven's glory. 

To fashion's, custom's discord, 
To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies, 
Soothing each lull a strain is heard, just heard, 
From some far shore the final chorus sounding. 

O the blest eyes, the happy hearts, 

That see, that know the guiding thread so fine, 

Along the mighty labyrinth. 



And thou, America, 

For the scheme's culmination, its thought and its reality, 

For these (not for thyself) thou hast arrived. 

Thou too surroundest all, 

Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, thou too by pathways 

broad and new, 
To the ideal tendest. 

The measur'd faiths of other lands, the grandeurs of the past, 
Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own, 
Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all, 
All eligible to all. 

All, all for immortality, 

Love like the light silently wrapping all, 

Nature's amelioration blessing all, 

The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain, 

Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening. 



Birds of Passage 197 

Give me, God, to sing that thought, 

Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith, 

In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us, 

Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space, 

Health, peace, salvation universal. 

Is it a dream? 

Nay but the lack of it the dream, 

And failing it life's lore and wealth a dream, 

And all the world a dream. 



PIONEERS! O PIONEERS I 

Come my tan-faced children, 
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready, 
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes? 

Pioneers ! O pioneers 1 

For we cannot tarry here, 
We must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger 
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, 

Pioneers! O pioneers! 

O you youths, Western youths, 
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, 
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the 
foremost, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

Have the elder races halted? 
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond 

the seas? 
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

All the past we leave behind, 
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world, 
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the 
march, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

We detachments steady throwing, 
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, 



198 Leaves of Grass 

Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown 
ways, 
Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

We primeval forests felling, 
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the 

mines within, 
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

Colorado men are we, 
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high 

plateaus, 
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we 
come, 
Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

From Nebraska, from Arkansas, 
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental 

blood intervened, 
\11 the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the 
Northern, 
Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

O resistless, restless race! • 

O beloved race in all ! O my breast aches with tender love 

for all ! 
() I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

Raise the mighty mother mistress, 
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, 

(bend your heads all), 
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, 
weapon'd mistress, 
Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

See my children, resolute children, 
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter, 
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers J 

On and on the compact ranks, 
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead 
quickly fill'd, 



Birds of Passage 199 

Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never 
stopping, 
Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

to die advancing on ! 

Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come? 
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is 
fill'd, 
Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

All the pulses of the world, 
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat, 
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

Life's involv'd and varied pageants, 

All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work, 
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves. 
Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

All the hapless silent lovers, 
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked, 
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

1 too with my soul and body, 

We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, 
Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions 
pressing, 
Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

Lo, the darting, bowling orb ! 
Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets, 
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

These are of us, they are with us, 
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in 

embryo wait behind, 
We to-day's procession heading as we the route for travel 
clearing, 
Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

O you daughters of the West! 
O you young and elder daughters ! O you mothers and you wives! 
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 



200 Leaves of Grass 

Minstrels latent on the prairies! 
(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done 

your work), 
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp 
amid us, 
Pioneers! O pioneers! 

Not for delectations sweet, 
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious, 
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, 

Pioneers! O pioneers! 

Do the feasters gluttonous feast? 
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted 

doors ? 
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on ..he ground, 

Pioneers! O pioneers! 

Has the night descended? 
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged 

nodding on our way? 
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious, 

Pioneers! O pioneers! 

Till with sound of trumpet, 
Far, far off the daybreak call — hark! how loud and clear I 

hear it wind, 
Swift! to the head of the army! — swift! spring to your places, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 



TO YOU 

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams, 
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your 

feet and hands, 
Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, 

troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from y^u, 
Your true soul and body 'appear before me, 
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work, 

farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking, 

suffering, dying. 

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be 
my poem, 



Birds of Passage 201 

I whisper with my lips close to your ear, 
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better 
than you. 

I have been dilatory and dumb, 

1 should have made my way straight to you long ago, 

I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted 
nothing but you. 

I will leave all and come and make hymns of you, 

None has understood you, but I understand you, 

None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to 

yourself, 
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection 

in you, 
None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never 

consent to subordinate you, 
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, 

beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself. 

Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre 

figure of all, 
From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of gold- 

colour'd light, 
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its 

nimbus of gold-colour'd light, 
From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it 

streams, effulgently flowing for ever. 

I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you! 

You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon 

yourself all your life, 
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time, 
What you have done returns already in mockeries, 
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in 

mockeries, what is their return?) 
The mockeries are not you, 
Underneath them and within them I see you lurk, 

1 pursue you where none else has pursued you, 

Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accus- 
tom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or from 
yourself, they do not conceal you from me, 

The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if 
these balk others they do not balk me, 



202 Leaves of Grass 

The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed, 
premature death, all these I part aside. 

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied 

in you, 
There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good 

is in you, 
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you, 
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits 

for you. 
As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like 

carefully to you, 
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I 

sing the songs of glory of you, 

Whoever you are ! claim your own at any hazard 1 

These shows of the East and West are tame compared to 

you, 
These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are 

immense and interminable as they, 
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of 

apparent dissolution, you are he or she who is master or 

mistress over them, 
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, 

pain, passion, dissolution. 

The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing suffi- 
ciency, 

Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, 
whatever you are promulges itself, 

Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, 
nothing is scanted, 

Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you 
are picks its way. 



FRANCE 

The ISth Year of these States 

A great year and place, 

A harsh discordant natal scream out-sounding, to touch the 
mother's heart closer than any yet. 



Birds of Passage 203 

I walk'd the shores of my Eastern sea, 

Heard over the waves the little voice, 

Saw the divine infant where she woke mournfully wailing, 

amid the roar of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling 

buildings, 
Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running, nor 

from the single corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those 

borne away in the tumbrils, 
Was not so desperate at the battues of death — was not so 

shock'd at the repeated fusillades of the guns. 

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued 

retribution? 
Could I wish humanity different? 
Could I wish the people made of wood and stone? 
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time? 

O Liberty ! O mate for me ! 

Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in reserve, to 

fetch them out in case of need, 
Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy'd, 
Here too could rise at last murdering and ecstatic, 
Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance. 

Hence I sign this salute over the sea, 

And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism, 

But remember the little voice that I heard wailing, and wait 

with perfect trust, no matter how long, 
And from to-day, sad and cogent I maintain the bequeath'd 

cause, as for all lands, 
And I send these words to Paris with my love, 
And I guess some chansonniers there will understand them, 
For I guess there is latent music yet in France, floods of it, 
O I hear already the bustle of instruments, they will soon be 

drowning all that would interrupt them, 

I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march, 
It reaches hither, it swells me to joyful madness, 

1 will run transpose it in words, to justify it, 
I will yet sing a song for you ma f emme. 

MYSELF AND MINE 

Myself and mine gymnastic ever, 

To stand the cold or heat, to take good aim with a gun, to saiJ 
a boat, to manage horses, to beget superb children, 



204 Leaves of Grass 

To speak readily and clearly, to feel at home among common 

people, 
And to hold our own in terrible positions on land and sea. 

iNTot for an embroiderer, 

(There will always be plenty of embroiderers, I welcome them 

also), 
But for the fibre of things and for inherent men and women. 

Not to chisel ornaments, 

But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous 

supreme Gods, that the States may realise them walking 

and talking. 

Le me have my own way, 

Let others promulge the laws, I will make no account of the laws, 

Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace, I hold up 

agitation and conflict, 
I praise no eminent man, I rebuke to his face the one that was 

thought most worthy. 

(Who are you? and what are you secretly guilty of all your 

life? 
Will you turn aside all your life? will you grub and chatter all 

your life? 
And who are you, blabbing by rote, years, pages, languages, 

reminiscences, 
Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak properly 

a single word?) 

Let others finish specimens, I never finish specimens, 

I start them by exhaustless laws as Nature does, fresh and 

modern continually. 
I give nothing as duties, 

What others give as duties I give as living impulses, 
(Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?) 

Let others dispose of questions, I dispose of nothing, I arouse 

unanswerable questions, 
Who are they I see and touch, and what about them? 
W r hat about these likes of myself that draw me so close by 

tender directions and indirections? 

I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but 
listen to my enemies, as I myself do, 



Birds of Passage 205 

I charge you for ever reject hose who would expound me, foi 

I cannot expound myself, 
I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me, 
I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free. 

After me, vista! 

I see life is not short, but immeasurably long, 

1 henceforth tread the world chaste, temperate, an early riser, 

a steady grower, 
Every hour the semen of centuries, and still of centuries. 

I must follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth, 
I perceive I have no time to lose. 

YEAR OF METEORS 

(1859-60) 

Year of meteors ! brooding year ! 

I would bind in words retrospective some of your deeds and signs, 

I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad, 

I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted 

the scaffold in Virginia, 
(I was at hand, silent I stood with teeth shut close, I watch'd, 
I stood very near you old man when cool and indifferent, but 

trembling with age and your unheal'd wounds you mounted 

the scaffold) ; 
I would sing in my copious song your census returns of the 

States, 
The tables of poulation and products, I would sing of your 

ships and their cargoes, 
The proud black ships of Manhattan arriving, some fill'd 

with immigrants, some from the isthmus with cargoes of 

gold, 
Songs thereof would I sing, to all that hitherward comes would 

I welcome give, 
And you would I sing, fair stripling ! welcome to you from me, 

young prince of England! 
(Remember you surging Manhattan's crowds as you pass'd 

with your cortege of nobles? 
There in the crowds stood I, and singled you out with attach- 
ment) ; 
Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam uf 

my bay, 



206 Leaves of Grass 

Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my bay, 

she was six hundred feet long, 
Her moving swiftly surrounded by myriads of small craft I 

forget not to sing; 
Nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north flaring 

in heaven, 
Nor the strange huge meteor-procession dazzling and clear 

shooting over our heads, 
(A moment, a moment long it sail'd its balls of unearthly light 

over our heads, 
Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone) ; 
Of such, and fitful as they, I sing — with gleams from them 

would I gleam and patch these chants, 
Your chants, O year all mottled with evil and good — year of 

forebodings ! 
Year of comets and meteors transient and strange — lo! even 

here one equally transient and strange! 
As I flit through you hastily, soon to fall and be gone, what is 

this chant, 
What am I myself but one of your meteors? 

WITH ANTECEDENTS 

1 

With antecedents, 

With my fathers and mothers and the accumulations of past 

ages, 
With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I 

am. 
With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece, and Rome, 
With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon, 
With antique maritime ventures, laws, artisanship, wars, and 

journeys, 
With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle, 
With the sale of slaves, with enthusiasts, with the troubadour, 

the crusader, and the monk, 
With those old continents whence we have come to this new 

continent, 
With the fading kingdoms and kings over there, 
With the fading religions and priests, 
With the small shores we look back to from our own large 

and present shores, 



Birds of Passage 207 

With countless years drawing themselves onward and arrived 

at these years, 
You and me arrived — America arrived and making this year, 
This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come. 



but it is not the years — it is I, it is You, 
We touch all laws and tally all antecedents, 

We are the skald, the oracle, the monk and the knight, we 

easily include them and more, 
We stand amid time beginningless and endless, we stand amid 

evil and good, 
All swings around us, there is as much darkness as light, 
The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us, 
Its sun, and its again, all swing around us. 

As for me (torn, storm}', amid these vehement days), 

1 have the idea of all, and am all and believe in all, 

I believe materialism is true and spiritualism is true, I reject 
no part. 

(Have I forgotten any part? anything in the past? 
Come to me whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition.) 

I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews, 

I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god, 

I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true with* 

out exception, 
I assert that all past days were what they must have been, 
And that they could no-how have been better than they were, 
And that to-day is what it must be, and that America is, 
And that to-day and America could no-how be better than 

they are. 



In the name of these States and in your and my name, the 

Past, 
And in the name of these States and in your and my name, 

the Present time, 

I know that the past was great and the future will be great, 
And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time, 



2o8. Leaves of Grass 

(For the sake of him I typify, for the common average man's 

sake, your sake if you are he), 
And that where I am or you are this present day, there is 

the centre of all days, all races, 
A.nd there is the meaning to us of all that has ever come of 

races and days, or ever will come. 



A BROADWAY PAGEANT 

1 

Over the Western sea hither from Niphon come, 
Courteous, the swart-cheek'd two-sworded envoys, 
Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive, 
Ride to-day through Manhattan. 

Libertad ! I do not know whether others behold what I behold; 

In the procession along with the nobles of Niphon, the errand- 
bearers, 

Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks 
marching, 

But I will sing you a song of what I behold Libertad. 

When million-footed Manhattan unpent descends to her pave- 
ments, 

When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud 
roar I love, 

When the round-mouth'd guns out of the smoke and smell I 
love spit their salutes, 

W r hen the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me, and heaven- 
clouds canopy my city with a delicate thin haze, 

When gorgeous the countless straight stems, the forests at 
the wharves, thicken with colours, 

When every ship richly drest carries her flag at the peak, 

When pennants trail and street- festoons hang from the win- 
dows, 

When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and 
foot-standers, when the mass is densest, 

When the fagades of the houses are alive with people, when 
eyes gaze riveted tens of thousands at a time, 

When the guests from the islands advance, when the pageant 
moves forward visible, 

When the summons is made, when the answer that waited 
thousands of years answers, 

I too rising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with 
the crowd, and gaze with them. 

209 



210 Leaves of Grass 

2 

Superb-faced Manhattan ! 

Comrade Americanos ! to us, then at last the Orient comes. 

To us, my city, 

Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on oppo- 
site sides, to walk in the space between, 
To-day our Antipodes comes. 

The Originatress comes, 

The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race 

of eld, 
Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion, 
Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments, 
With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes, 
The race of Brahma comes. 

See my cantabile ! these and more are flashing to us from the 

procession, 
As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing 

before us. 

For not the envoys nor the tann'd Japanee from his island 

only, 
Lithe and silent the Hindoo appears, the Asiatic continent 

itself appears, the past, the dead, 
The murky night-morning, of wonder and fable inscrutable, 
The envelop'd mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees, 
The north, the sweltering south, eastern Assyria, the Hebrews, 

the ancient of ancients, 
Vast desolated cities, the gliding present, all of these and 

more are in the pageant-procession. 

Geography, the world, is in it, 

The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast 

beyond, 
The coast you henceforth are facing — you Libertad ! from 

your Western golden shores, 
The countries there with their populations, the millions en- 

masse are curiously here, 
The swarming market-places, the temples with idols ranged 

along the sides or at the end, bonze, brahmin, and llama, 
Mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman, 



A Broadwa)^ Pageant 21 1 

The singing-girl and the dancing-girl, the ecstatic person, the 

secluded emperors, 
Confucius himself, the great poets and heroes, the warriors, 

the castes, all, 
Trooping up, crowding from all directions, from the Altay 

mountains, 
From Thibet, from the four winding and far-flowing rivers of 

China, 
From the southern peninsulas and the demi-continental islands, 

from Malaysia, 
These and whatever belongs to them palpable show forth to 

me, and are seiz'd by me, 
And I am seiz'd by them, and friendlily held by them, 
Till as here them all I chant, Libertad ! for themselves and 

for you. 

For I too raising my voice join the ranks of this pageant, 

I am the chanter, I chant aloud over the pageant, 

I chant the world on my Western sea, 

I chant, copious the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky, 

I chant the new empire grander than any before, as in a. 

vision it comes to me, 
I chant America the mistress, I chant a greater supremacy, 
I chant projected a thousand blooming cities yet in time on 

those groups of sea-islands, 
My sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes, 
My stars and stripes fluttering in the wind, 
Commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work, 

races reborn, refresh'd, 
Lives, works resumed — the object I know not — but the old, 

the Asiatic renew'd as it must be, 
Commencing from this day surrounded by the world. 



And you Libertad of the world! 

You shall sit in the middle well-pois'd thousands and thou- 
sand of years, 

As to-day from one side the noble of Asia come to y^u, 

As to-morrow from the other side the queen of England sends 
her eldest son to you, 

The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed, 

The ring is circled, the journey is done, 



212 Leaves of Grass 

The box-lid is but perceptibly open'd, nevertheless the per- 
fume pours copiously out of the whole box. 

Young Libertad ! with the venerable Asia, the all-mother, 

Be considerate with her now and ever hot Libertad, for you 
are all, 

Bend your proud neck to the long-off mother now sending 
messages over the archipelagoes to you, 

Bend your proud neck low for once, young Libertad. 

Were the children straying westward so long? so wide the 

tramping? 
Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from 

Paradise so long? 
Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while 
unknown, for you, for reasons? 

They are justified, they are accomplish'd, they shall now be 
turn'd the other way also, to travel toward you thence, 

They shall now also march obediently eastward for your sake, 
Libertad. 



SEA-DRIFT 

OUT OF THE CRADLE ENDLESSLY ROCKING 

Out v of the cradle endlessly rocking, 

Out of the mock-bird's throat, the musical shuttle, 

Out of the Ninth-month midnight, 

Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child 

leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot, 
Down from the shower'd halo, 
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as 

if they were alive, 
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, 
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, 
From your memories, sad brother, from the fitful risings and 

fallings I heard, 
From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as 

if with tears, 
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the 

mist, 
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease, 
From the myriad thence-arous'd words, 
From the word stronger and more delicious than any, 
From such as now they start the scene revisiting, 
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, 
Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly, 
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again, 
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, 
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter, 
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them, 
A reminiscence sing. 

Once Paumanok, 

When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass 

was growing, 
Up this seashore in some briers, 
Two feather'd guests from Alabama, two together, 
And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown, 

213 



214 Leaves of Grass 

And every day the he-hird to and fro near at hand, 

And every day the she-bird crouch'd on her nest, silent, with 
bright eyes, 

And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never dis- 
turbing them, 

Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. 

Shine! shine! shine! 

Pour down your warmth, great sun! 

While we bask, we two together. 

Two together! 

Winds blow south, or winds blow north, 
Day come white, or night come black, 
Home, or rivers and mountains from home, 
Singing all time, minding no time, 
While we two keep together. 

Till of a sudden, 

May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate, 

One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest, 

Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next, 

Nor ever appear'd again. 

And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea, 

And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather, 

Over the hoarse surging of the sea, 

Or fitting from brier to brier by day, 

I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird, 

The solitary guest from Alabama. 

Blow! blow! blow! 

Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore; 

I wait and I wait till you blozv my mate to me. 

Yes, when the stars glisten'd, 

All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop'd stake, 

Down almost amid the slapping waves, 

Sat the lone singer wonderful causing ..ears. 

He call'd on his mate, 

He pour'd forth the meanings which I of all men know. 



Sea-Drift 215 

Yes, my brother, I know, 

The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note. 
For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding, 
Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the 

shadows, 
Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and 

sights after their sorts, 
The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing, 
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair, 
Listen'd long and long. 

Listen'd to keep, to sing, now translating the notes, 
Following you, my brother. 

Soothe! soothe! soothe! 

Close on its waves soothes the wave behind, 

And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one 

close, 
But my love soothes not me, not me. 

Low hangs the moon, it rose late, 

It is lagging— O I think it is heavy with love, with love. 

madly the sea pushes upon the land, 
With love, with love. 

O night! do I not sec my love fluttering out among the 

breakers? 
What is that little black thing I see there in the white? 

Loud! loud! loud! 

Loud I call to you, my love! 

High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves, 

Surely you must know who is here, is here, 

You must know who I am, my love. 

Low-hanging moon! 

What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow? 

O it is the shape, the shape of my mate! 

moon, do not keep her from me any longer. 

Land! land! land! 

Whichever way I turn, O I think vou could give me my mate 

back again if you only would, 
For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look. 



216 Leaves of Grass 

O rising stars! 

Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some 
of you. 



throat! trembling throat! 

Sound clearer through the atmosphere! 

Pierce the woods, the earth, 

Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want. 

Shake out carols! 

Solitary here, the night's carols! 

Carols of lonesome love! death's carols! 

Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon! 

O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea! 

reckless despairing carols. 



But soft! sink low! 
Soft! let me just murmur, 

And do you wait a moment you husky-nois'd sea, 
For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me, 
So faint, I must be still, be still to listen, 
But not altogether still, for then she might not come imme- 
diately to me. 

Hither my love! 

Here I am! here! 

With this just-sustain' d note I announce myself to you, 

This gentle call is for you my love, for you. 

Do not be decoy'd elsewhere, 

That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice, 
That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray, 
Those are the shadows of leaves. 

O darkness! in vain! 

O I am very sick and sorrowful. 

brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea! 

troubled reflection in the sea! 

throat! throbbing heart! 

And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night. 



Sea-Drift 217 



O past! O happy life; O songs of joy! 
fh the air, in the woods, over fields, 
Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved! 
But -my mate no more, no more with me! 
We two together no more. 

The aria sinking, 

All else continuing, the stars shining, 

The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuoui echoing, 

With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning, 

On the sand of Paumanok's shore grey and rustling, 

The yellow half -moon enlarged, sagging down., drooping, the 

face of the sea almost touching, 
The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair 

the atmosphere dallying, 
The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last 

tumultuously bursting, 
The aria's meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing, 
The strange tears down the cheeks coursing, 
The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering, 

The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying, 
To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing, some drown'd 

secret hissing, 
To the outsetting bard. 

Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul), 

Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me? 

For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, now I have 

heard you, 
Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake, 
And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, 

louder, and more sorrowful than yours, 
A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, 

never to die. 

O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me, 
O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating 

you, 
Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations, 
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, 



218 Leaves of Grass 

Never again leave me to the peaceful child I was before what 

there in the night, 
By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon, 
The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within, 
The unknown want, the destiny of me. 

O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere), 
O if I am to have so much, let me have more! 

A word then (for I will conquer it) 
The word final, superior to all, 
Subtle, sent up — what is it? — I listen; . 

Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea- 
waves? 
Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands? 

Whereto answering, the sea, 

Delaying not, hurrying not, 

Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before day- 
break, 

Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death, 

And again death, death, death, death, 

Hissing melodious, neither like the bird not like my arous'd 
child's heart, 

But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet, 

Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly 
all over, 

Death, death, death, death, death. 



Which I do not forget, 

But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother, 

That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's grey beach. 

With the thousand responsive songs at random, 

My own songs awaked from that hour, 

And with them the key, the word up from the waves, 

The word of the sweetest song and all songs, 

That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet. 

(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet 

garments, bending aside), 
The sea whisper'd me. 



Sea-Drift 219 

AS I EBB'D WITH THE OCEAN OF LIFE 



As I ebb'd with the ocean of life, 

As I wended the shores I know, 

As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok, 

Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant, 

Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, 

I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, 

Held by this' electric self out of the pride of which I utter 

poems, 
Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, 
The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all 

the land of the globe. 

Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow 

those slender windrows, 
Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten, 
Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by 

the tide, 
Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me, 
Paumanok there and then as I thought the old thought of 

likenesses, 
These you presented to me you fish-shaped island, 
As I wended the shores I know, 
As I walk'd with that electric self seeking types. 



As I wend to the shores I know not, 

As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wrecku, 

As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me, 

As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer, 

I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift, 

A few sands and dead leaves to gather, 

Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift. 

O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth, 

Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, 

Aware now that amid ajl that blab whose echoes recoil upon 

me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, 
But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yef 

untouched, untold, altogether unreach'd, 



220 Leaves of Grass 

Withdrawn far, r/tocking me with mock-congratulatory signs 

and bows, 
With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have 

written, 
Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath. 

I perceive I have not really understood anything, not a single 

object, and that no man ever can, 
Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to 

dart upon me and sting me, 
Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all. 



You oceans both, I close with you, 

We murmur alike reproachfully rolling sands and drift, 

knowing not why, 
These little shreds indeed standing for you and me and all. 

You friable shore with trails of debris, 

i A ou fish-shaped island, I take what is underfoot, 

What is yoursis mine, my father. 

I too Paumanok, 

I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been 

wash'd on your shores, 
I too am but a trail of drift and debris, 
I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island. 

I throw myself upon your breast, my father, 
I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me, 
I hold you so firm till you answer me something. 

Kiss me, my father, 

Touch me with your lips as I touch those I love, 
Breathe to me while I hold you close the secret of the mur« 
muring I envy. 



Ebb, ocean of life (the flow will return), 
Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother, 
Endlessly cry for your castaways, but fear not, deny not me, 
Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch 
you or gather from you. 



Sea-Drift 2-1 

I mean tenderly by you and all, 

I gather for myself and for this phantom looking down wherft 
we lead, and following me and mine. 

Me and mine, loose windrows, little corpses, 

Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, 

(See, from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last, 

See, the prismatic colours glistening and rolling), 

Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, 

Buoy'd hither from many moods, one contradicting another, 

From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, 

Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid 
or soil, 

Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and 
thrown, 

A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, 
drifted at random, 

Jiisf as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature, 

Just as much whence we comes that blare of the cloud- 
trumpets, 

We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence, spread 
out before you, 

You up there walking or sitting, 

Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet. 

TEARS 

Tears ! tears ! tears ! 

In the night, in solitude, tears, 

On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand, 

Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate, 

Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head; 

O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears? 

What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch'd there on the sand? 

Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries ; 

O storm, embodied, rising, careering with soft steps along the 
beach ! 

O wild and dismd night storm, with wind— O belching and 
desperate ! 

O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance 
and regulated pace, 

But away at night as you fly, none looking— O then the un- 
loosen'^ ocean, 

Of tears! tears! tears! 



222 Leaves of Grass 

TO THE MAN-OF-WAR-BIRD 

Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm, 
Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions, 
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st, 
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee), 
Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating, 
As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee, 
(Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast). 

Far, far at sea, 

After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with 

wrecks, 
With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene, 
The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun, 
The limpid spread of air cerulean, 
Thou also re-appearest. 

Thou born to match the gale (thou art all wings), 

To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, 

Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails, 

Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms 

gyrating, 
At dusk that look'd on Senegal, at morn America, 
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, 
In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul, 
What joys! what joys were thine! 

ABOARD AT A SHIP'S HELM 

Aboard at a ship's helm, 

A young steersman steering with care. 

Through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing, 

An ocean-bell — O a warning bell, rock'd by the waves. 

O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing, 
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place. 

For as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the loud admonition, 
The bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away under 

her grey sails, 
The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth 

speeds away gaily and safe. 



Sea-Drift 223 

But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship atjoard the ship! 
Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, 
voyaging. 

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT 

On the beach at night, 
Stands a child with her father, 
Watching the east, the autumn sky. 

Up through the darkness, 

While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses 

spreading, 
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky, 
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east. 
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter, 
And nigh at hand, only a very little above, 
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades. 

From the beach the child holding the hand of her father, 
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all, 
Watching, silently weeps. 

Weep not, child, 

Weep not, my darling, 

With these kisses let me remove your tears, 

The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious, 

They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars 

only in apparition, 
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, 

the Pleiades shall emerge, 
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall 

shine out again, 
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they 

endure, 
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons 

shall again shine. 

Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter? 
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars? 

Something there is, 

(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper, 



224 Leaves of Grass 

I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection), 
Something there is more immortal even than the stars, 
(Many the burials, many the days and nights passing away), 
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter, 
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite, 
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades. 

THE WORLD BELOW THE BRINE 

The world below the brine, 

Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves, 

Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick 
tangle, openings, and pink turf, 

Different colours, pale grey and green, purple, white, and gold, 
the play of light through the water, 

Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, 
rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers, 

Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawl- 
ing close to the bottom, 

The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or 
disporting with his flukes, 

The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea- 
leopard, and the sting-ray, 

Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean- 
depths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do, 

The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air 
breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere, 

The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk 
other spheres. 

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE 

On the beach at night alone, 

As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky 

song, 
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the 

clef of the universes and of the future. 

A vast similitude interlocks all, 

All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, 
All distances of place however wide, 
All distances of time, all inanimate forms, 
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, 
or in different worlds. 



Sea Drift 22c 

All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, 

the brutes, 
All nations, colours, barbarisms, civilisations, languages, 
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, 01 

any globe, 
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future, 
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd, 
And shall for ever span them and compactly hold and enclose 

them. 

SONG FOR ALL SEAS, ALL SHIPS 

1 

To-day a rude brief recitative, 

Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship- 
signal, 

Of unnamed heroes in the ships — of waves spreading ant 1 
spreading far as the eye can reach, 

Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing, 

And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations, 

Fitful, like a surge. 

Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all 
intrepid sailors, 

Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never sur- 
prise nor death dismay, 

Pick'd sparingly without noise by thee, old ocean, chosen by 
thee, 

Thou sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest 
nations, 

Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee, 

Indomitable, untamed as thee. 

(Ever the heroes on water or on land, by ones or twor 

appearing, 
Ever the stock preserv'd and never lost, though rare, enough 

for seed preserv'd.) 



Flaunt out, O sea, your separate flags of nations! 
Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals! 
But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of 
man one flag above all the rest, 



226 Leaves of Grass 

A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man 

elate above death, 
Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates, 
And all that went down doing their duty, 
Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young 

or old, 
A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o'er all brave 

sailors, 
All seas, all ships. 

PATROLLING BARNEGAT 

Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running, 
Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone mut- 
tering, 
Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing, 
Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing, 
Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering, 
On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting, 
Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting, 
Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing, 
{That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal 

flaring?) 
Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending, 
Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting, 
Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering, 
A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting, 
That savage trinity warily watching. 

AFTER THE SEA-SHIP 

After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds, 

After the white-grey sails taut to their spars and ropes, 

Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their 

necks, 
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship, 
Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying, 
Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves, 
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with 

curves, 
Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the sur- 
face, 



Sea Drift 227 

Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearn- 
fully flowing, 

The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolic- 
some under the sun, 

A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many 
fragments, 

Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following. 



BY THE ROADSIDE 

A BOSTON BALLAD 

(1854) 

To get betimes in Boston town I rose this morning early, 
Here's a jcod place at the corner, I must stand and see the 
show. 

Clear the way there Jonathan ! 

Way for the President's marshal — way for the government 

cannon ! 
Way for the Federal foot and dragoons (and the apparitions 

copiously tumbling). 

I love to look on the Stars and Stripes, I hope the fifes will 
play Yankee Doodle. 

How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops ! 
Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston 
town. 

A fog follows, antiques of the same come limping, 
Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and 
bloodless. 

Why this is indeed a show — it has called the dead out of the 

earth ! 
The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see ! 
Phantoms ! phantoms countless by flank and rear ! 
Cock'd hats of mothy mould — crutches made of mist! 
Arms in slings — old men leaning on young men's shoulders. 

What troubles you Yankee phantoms? what is all this chatter- 
ing of bare gums? 

228 



By the Roadside 229 

Does the ague convulse your limbs? do you mistake your 
crutches for firelocks and level them? 

If you blind your eyes with tears you will not see the Presi- 
dent's marshal, 

If you groan such groans you might balk the government 
cannon. 

For shame old maniacs — bring down those toss'd arms, and 
let your white hair be, 

Here gape your great grandsons, their wives gaze at them 
from the windows, 

See how well dress'd, see how orderly they conduct them- 
selves. 

Worse and worse — can't you stand it? are you retreating? 
Is this hour with the living too dead for you? 

Retreat then — pell-mell ! 

To your graves — back — back to the hills old limpers! 

I do not think you belong here anyhow. 

But there is one thing that belongs here — shall I tell you 
what it is, gentlemen of Boston? 

I will whisper it to the Mayor, he shall send a committee to 
England, 

They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to 
the royal vault, 

Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the 
grave-clothes, box up his bones for a journey, 

Find a swift Yankee clipper — here is freight for you, black- 
bellied clipper, 

Up with your anchor — shake out your sails — steer straight 
toward Boston bay. 

Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the 
government cannon, 

Fetch home the roarers from Congress, make another proces- 
sion, guard it with foot and dragoons. 

This centre-piece for them ; 

Look, all orderly citizens — look from the windows, women! 



230 Leaves of Grass 

The committee open the box, set up the regal ribs, glue those 

that will not stay, 
Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top 

of the skull. 

You have got your revenge, old buster — the crown is come 
to its own, and more than its own. 

Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan — you are a made 

man from this day, 
You are mighty cute — and here is one of your bargains. 

EUROPE 

The 72nd and 73rd Years of These States 

Suddenly out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves, 

Like lightning it le'pt forth half startled at itself, 

Its feet upon the ashes and the rags, its hands tight to the 

throats of kings. 
O hope and faith! 

O aching close of exiled patriots' lives 1 
O many a sicken'd heart ! 
Turn back unto this day and make yourselves afresh. 

And you, paid to defile the People — you liars, mark! 

Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts, 

For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from 

his simplicity the poor man's wages, 
For many a promise sworn by royal lips and broken and 

laugh'd at in the breaking, 
Then in their power not for all these did the blows strike 

revenge, or the heads of the nobles fall ; 
The People scorn'd the ferocity of kings. 

But the sweetness of mercy brew'd bitter destruction, and 
the frighten'd monarchs come back, 

Each comes in state with his train, hangman, priest, tax- 
gatherer, 

ooldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant. 

Yet behind all lowering stealing, lo, a shape, 
Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front, and 
form, in scarlet folds, 



By the Roadside 231 

Whose face and eyes none may see, 

Out of its robes only this, the red robes lifted by the arm, 
One finger crook'd pointed high over the top, like the head 
of a snake appears. 

Meanwhile corpses lie in new-made graves, bloody corpses of 

young men, 
The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes 

are flying, the creatures of power laugh aloud, 
And all these things bear fruits, and they are good. 

Those corpses of young men, 

Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets, those hearts pierc'd 

by the grey lead, 
Cold and motionless as they seem live elsewhere with un- 

slaughter'd vitality. 

They live in other young men, O kings ! 

They live in brothers again ready to defy you, 

They were purified by death, they were taught and exalted. 

Not a grave of the murder'd for freedom but grows seed for 

freedom, in its turn to bear seed, 
Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and 

the snows nourish. 

Not a disembodied spirit can .e weapons of tyrants let loose 
But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counselling 
cautioning. 

Liberty, let others despair of you — I never despair of you. 

Is the house shut? is the master away? 
Nevertheless, be ready, be not weary of watching, 
He will soon return, his messengers come anon. 

A HAND-MIRROR 

Hold it up sternly — see this it sends back (who is it? is it 

you?) 
Outside fair costume, within ashes and filth, 
No more a flashing eye, no more a sonorous voice or springy 

step, 
Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step, 



232 Leaves of Grass 

A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee ? s 

flesh, 
Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous, 
Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination, 
Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams, 
Words babble, hearing and touch callous, 
No brain, no heart left, no magnetism of sex; 
Such from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence, 
Such a result so soon — and from such a beginning! 

GODS 

Lover divine and perfect Comrade, 
Waiting content, invisible yet, but certain, 
Be thou my God. 

Thou, tnou, the Ideal Man, 
Fair, able, beautiful, content, and lovinpr 
Complete in body and dilate in spirit, 
Be thou my God. 

O Death (for Life has served its turn), 
Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion, 
Be thou my God. 

Aught, aught of mightiest, best I see, conceive, or know, 
(To break the stagnant tie — thee, thee to free, O soul), 
Be thou my God. 

All great ideas, the races' aspirations, 
All heorisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts, 
Be ye my Gods. 

Or Time and Space, 

Or shape of Earth divine and wondrous, 
Or some fair shape I viewing, worship, 
Or lustrous orb of sun or star by night, 
Be ye my Gods. 

GERMS 

Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts, 

The ones known, and the ones unknown, the ones on the stars, 

The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped, 



By the Roadside 233 

Wonders as of those countries, the soil, trees, cities, inhabi- 
tants, whatever they may be, 

Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations 
and effects, 

Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, 
stand provided for in a handful of space, which I extend 
my arm and half enclose with my hand, 

That containing the start of each and all, the virtue, the germs 
of all. 

THOUGHTS 

Of ownership — as if one fit to own things could not at pleasure 
enter upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself ; 

Of vista — suppose some sight in arriere through the formative 
chaos, presuming the growth, fullness, life, now attain'd 
on the journey, 

(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever con- 
tinued) ; 

Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time has 
become supplied — and of what will yet be supplied, 

Because all I see and know I believe to have its main purport 
in what will yet be supplied. 

WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER 

When I heard the learn'd astronomer, 

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before 

me, 
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, 

and measure them, 
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with 

much applause in the lecture-room, 
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, 
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, 
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, 
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars. 

PERFECTIONS 

Only themselves understand themselves and the like of them- 
selves, 
As souls only understand souls. 



234 Leaves of Grass 

O ME! LIFE! 

me! life! of the questions of these recurring, 

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the 

foolish, 
Of myself for ever reproaching myself (for who more foolish 

than I, and who more faithless?), 
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of 

the struggle ever renew'd, 
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds 

I see around me, 
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, wit', the rest me 

intertwined, 
The question, O me! so sad, recurring — What good amid 

these, O me, O life? 

Answer 

That you are here — that life exists and identity, 
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a 
verse. 

TO A PRESIDENT 

All you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages, 
You have not learn'd of Nature — of the politics of Nature 
you have not learn'd the great amplitude, rectitude, im- 
partiality, 
You have not seen that only such as they are for these States, 
And that what is less than they must sooner or later lift off 
from these States. 

I SIT AND LOOK OUT 

1 sit and look upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon 

all oppression and shame, 

I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish 
with themselves, remorseful after deeds done, 

I see in low life the mother misused by her children, dying, 
neglected, gaunt, desperate, 

I see the wife misused by her husband, I see the treacherous 
seducer of young women, 

; mark the ranklings of jealously and unrequited love at- 
tempted to be hid, I see these sights on the earth, 



By the Roadside 235 

I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny, I see martyrs 
and prisoners, 

I observe a famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots 
who shall be kill'd to preserve the lives of the rest, 

I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant per- 
sons upon labourers, the poor, and upon negroes, and 
the like; 

All these — all the meanness and agony without end I sitting 
look out upon, 

See, hear, and am silent. 



TO RICH GIVERS 

What you give me I cheerfully accept, 

A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money, as I 

rendezvous with my poems, 
A traveller's lodging and breakfast as I journey through the 

States — why should I be ashamed to own such gifts? why 

to advertise for them? 
For I myself am not one who bestows nothing upon man 

and woman, 
For I bestow upon any man or woman the entrance to all 

the gifts of the universe. 

THE DALLIANCE OF THE EAGLES 

Skirting the river road (my forenoon walk, my rest), 
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of 

the eagles, 
The rushing amorous contact high in space together, 
The clinching, interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating 

wheel, 
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling, 
In tumbling, turning, clustering loops, straight downward 

falling, 
Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull, 
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons 

loosing, 
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate 

diverse flight, 
She hers, he his, pursuing. 



236 



Leaves of Grass 

ROAMING IN THOUGHT 

(After reading Hegel) 

Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that 
is Good steadily hastening towards immortality, 

And the vast all that is call'd Evil I saw hastening to merge 
itself and become lost and dead. 

A FARM PICTURE 

Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn, 
A sunlit pasture field with cattle and horses feeding, 
And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away. 

A CHILD'S AMAZE 

Silent and amazed even when a little boy, 

I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in 

his statements, 
-As contending against some being or influence. 

THE RUNNER 

On a flat road runs the well-train'd runner, 
He is lean and sinewy with muscular legs, 
He is thinly clothed, he leans forward as he runs, 
With lightly closed fists and arms partially rais'd. 

BEAUTIFUL WOMEN 

Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young, 
The young are beautiful— but the old are more beautiful than 
the young. 

MOTHER AND BABE 

I see the sleeping babe nestling the breast of its mother, 
The sleeping mother and babe— hush'd, I study them long and 
long. 



By the Roadside 237 

THOUGHT 

Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness; 

As I stand aloof and look there is to me something profoundly 

affecting in large masses of men following the lead of 

those who do not believe in men. 

VISOR'D 

A mask, a perpetual natural disguiser of herself, 
Concealing her face, concealing her form, 
Changes and transformations every hour, every moment, 
Falling upon her even when she sleeps. 

THOUGHT 

Of Justice — as if Justice could be anything but the same ample 
law, expounded by natural judges and saviours, 

As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to 
decisions. 

GLIDING O'ER ALL 

Gliding o'er all, through all, 
Through Nature, Time, and Space, 
As a ship on the waters advancing, 
The voyage of the soul — not life alone, 
Death, many deaths I'll sing. 

HAST NEVER COME TO THEE AN HOUR 

Hast never come to thee an hour, 

A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bub^ 

bles, fashions, wealth? 
These eager business aims — books, politics, art, amours, 
To utter nothingness? 

THOUGHT 

Of Equality — as if it harm'd me, giving others the same 
chances and rights as myself — as if it were not indis- 
pensable to my own rights that others possess the same. 



238 Leaves of Grass 

TO OLD AGE 

i see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself 
grandly as it pours in the great sea. 

LOCATIONS AND TIMES 

Locations and times — what is it in me that meets them all, 
whenever and wherever, and makes me at home? 

Forms, colours, densities, odours — what is it in me that corre- 
sponds with them? 

OFFERINGS 

A thousand perfect men and women appear, 
Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children 
and youths, with offerings. 

TO THE STATES 

To Indentify the 16th, \7th, or 18//t Presidentiad 

Why reclining, interrogating? why myself and all drowsing? 
What deepening twilight — scum floating atop of the waters, 
Who are they as bats and night-dogs askant in the capitol? 
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O 

North, your arctic freezings!) 
Are those really Congressmen; are those the great Judges? is 

that the President? 
Then I will sleep awhile yet, for I see that these States sleep, 

for reasons ; 
(With gathering murk, with muttering thunder and lambent 

shoots we all duly awake, 
South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will surely 

awake). 



DRUM-TAPS 

FIRST O SONGS FOR A PRELUDE 

First O songs for a prelude, 

Lightly strike on the stretch'd tympanum pride and joy in 

my city, 
How she led the rest to arms, how she gave the cue, 
How at once with lithe limb unwaiting a moment she sprang, 
(O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless! 
O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer 

than steel!) 
How you sprang — how you threw off the costumes of peace 

with indifferent hand, 
How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife 

were heard in their stead, 
How you led to the war (that shall serve for our prelude 

songs of soldiers), 
How Manhattan drum-taps led. 

Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading, 

Forty years as a pageant, till unawares the lady of this teem. 

ing and turbulent city, 
Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth, 
With her million children around her, suddenly, 
At dead of night, at news from the south, 
Incens'd struck with clinch'd hand the pavement. 

A shock electric, the night sustain'd it, 

Till with ominous hum our hive at daybreak pour'd out its 

myriads. 
From the houses then and the workshops, and through all the 

doorways, 
Leapt they tumultuous, and lo ! Manhattan arming. 

To the drum-taps prompt, 
The young men falling in and arming, 

The mechanics arming (the trowel, the jack-plane, the black- 
smith's hammer, tost aside with precipitation), 

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240 Leaves of Grass 

The lawyer leaving his office and arming, the judge leaving the 

court, 
The driver deserting his wagon in the street, jumping down, 

throwing the reins abruptly down on the horses' backs, 
The salesman leaving the store, the boss, book-keeper, porter, 

all leaving; 
Squads gather everywhere by common consent and arm, 
The new recruits, even boys, the old men show them how to 

wear their accoutrements, they buckle the straps carefully, 
Outdoors arming, indoors arming, the flash of the musket- 
barrels, 
The white tents cluster in camps, the arm'd sentries around, 

the sunrise cannon and again at sunset, 
Arm'd regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and 

embark from the wharves, 
(How good they look as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, 

with their guns on their shoulders! 
How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown 

faces and their clothes and knapsacks cover'd with dust !) 
The blood of the city up — arm'd ! arm'd ! the cry everywhere, 
The flags flung out from the steeples of churches and from all 

the public buildings and stores, 
The tearful parting, the mother kisses her son, the son kisses 

his mother, 
(Loth is the mother to part, yet not a word does she speak 

to detain him), 
The tumultuous escort, the ranks of policemen preceding, 

clearing the way, 
The unpent enthusiasm, the wild cheers of the crowd for their 

favourites, 
The artillery, the silent cannons bright as gold, drawn along, 

rumble lightly over the stones, 
(Silent cannons, soon to cease your silence, 
Soon unlimber'd to begin the red business) ; 
All the mutter of preparation, all the determin'd arming, 
The hospital service, the lint, bandages, and medicines, 
The women volunteering for nurses, the work begun for in 

earnest, no mere parade now; 
War! an arm'd race is advancing! the welcome for battle, no 

turning away; 
War ! be it weeks, months, or years, an arm'd race it advanc- 
ing to welcome it. 



Drum-Taps 241 

Mannahatta a-march — and it's O to sing it well ! 
It's for a manly life in the camp. 

And the sturdy artillery, 

The guns bright as gold, the work for giants, to serve well 

the guns, 
Unlimber them! (no more as the past forty years for salutes 

for courtesies merely, 
Put in something now besides powder and wadding). 

And you lady of ships, you Mannahatta, 

Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city, 

Often in peace and wealth you were pensive or covertly 

frown'd amid all your children, 
But now you smile with joy exulting old Mannahatta. 

EIGHTEEN SIXTY-ONE 
Arm'd year — year of the struggle, 
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible 

year, 
Not you as some pale poetling seated at a desk lisping cadenzas 

piano, 
But as a strong man erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, 

carrying a rifle on your shoulder, 
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands, with a 

knife in the belt at your side, 
As I heard you shouting loud, your sonorous voice ringing 

across the continent, 
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities, 
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you as one of the work- 
men, the dwellers in Manhattan, 
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and 

Indiana, 
Rapidlly crossing the West with springy gait and descending 

the Alleghanies, 
Or down from the great lakes or in Pennsylvania, or on deck 

along the Ohio river, 
Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or 

at Chattanooga on the mountain top, 
Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs clothed in blue, 

bearing weapons, robust year, 
Heard your determin'd voice launch'd forth again and again, 
Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipp'd 

cannon, 
I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, districted year. 



242 Leaves of Grass 

BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS! 

Beat! beat! drums !— blow ! bugles! blow! 

Through the windows— through the doors— burst like a ruth- 
less force, 

Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation, 

Into the school where the scholar is studying; 

Leave not the bridegroom quiet — no happiness must he have 
now with his bride, 

Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or 
gathering his grain, 

So fierce you whirr and p^und you drums — so shrill you 
bugles blow. 

Beat! beat! drums! — blow! bugles! blow! 

Over the traffic of cities — over the rumble of wheels in the 

streets ; 
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no 

sleepers must sleep in those beds, 
No bargainers' bargains by day — no brokers or speculators — 

would they continue? 
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to 

sing? 
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before 

the judge? 
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums — you bugles wilder blow. 

Beat! beat! drums!— blow! bugles! blow I 

Make no parley — stop for no expostulation, 

Mind not the timid — mind not the weeper or prayer, 

Mind not the old man beseeching the young man, 

Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties, 

Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie 

awaiting the hearses, 
So strong you thump, O terrible drums — so loud you bugles 

blow. 

FROM PAUMANOK STARTING I FLY LIKE A BIRD 

From Paumanok starting I fly like a bird, 

Around and around to soar to sing the idea of all, 

To the north betaking myself to sing there arctic songs, 

To Kanada till I absorb Kanada in myself, to Michigan then, 



Drum-Taps 243 

To Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, to sing their songs (they are 

inimitable) ; 
Then to Ohio and Indiana to sing theirs, to Missouri and 

Kansas and Arkansas to sing theirs, 
To Tennessee and Kentucky, to the Carolinas and Georgia to 

sing theirs, 
To Texas and so along up toward California, to roam accepted 

everywhere ; 
To sing first (to the tap of the war-drum if need be), 
The idea of all, of the Western world one and inseparable, 
And then the song of each member of these States. 

SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK 

Poet 

O a new song, a free song, 

Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices 

clearer, 
By the wind's voice and that of the drum, 
By the banner's voice and child's voice and sea's voice and 

father's voice, 
Low on the ground and high in the air, 
On the ground where father and child stand, 
In the upward air where their eyes turn, 
Where the banner at daybreak is flapping. 

Words! book-words! what are you? 

Words no more, for hearken and see, 

My song is there in the open air, and I must sing, 

With the banner and pennant a-flapping. 

I'll weave the chord and twine in, 

Man's desire and babe's desire, I'll twine them in, I'll put 

in life, 
I'll put the bayonet's flashing point, I'll let bullets and slugs 

whizz, 
(As one carrying a symbol and menace far into the future, 
Crying with trumpet voice, Arouse and beware! Beware and 

arouse!) 
I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full 

of joy, 
Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete, 
With the banner and pennant a-flapping. 



244 Leaves of Grass 

Pennant 

Come up here, bard, bard, 
Come up here, soul, soul, 
Come up here, dear little child, 

To fly in in the clouds and winds with me, and play with 
the measureless light. 

Child 

Father, what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long 

finger ? 
And what does it say to me all the while? 

Father 

Nothing, my babe, you see in the sky, 

And nothing at all to you it says — but look you, my babe, 

Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the 

money-shops opening, 
And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets 

with goods; 
These, ah, these, how valued aad toil'd for these! 
How envied by all the earth. 

Poet 

Fresh and rosy red the sun is mounting high, 

On floats the sea in distant blue careering through its channels, 

On floats the wind over the breast of the sea setting in toward 

land, 
The great steady wind from west or west-by-south, 
Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters. 

But I am not the sea nor the red sun, 

I am not the wind with girlish laughter, 

Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which 

lashes, 
Not the spirit that ever lashes its »wn body to terror and death, 
But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings, 
Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land, 
Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings, 
And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave, and that 

banner and pennant, 
Aloft there flapping and flapping. 



Drum-Taps 245 

Child 

O father it is alive — it is full of people — it has children, 

now it seems to me it is talking to its children, 

1 hear it— it talks to me — O it is wonderful! 

O it stretches — it spreads and runs so fast — O my father, 
It is so broad it covers the whole sky. 

Father 

Cease, cease, my foolish babe, 

What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much it displeases 
me; 

Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and 
pennants aloft, 

But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid- 
walled houses. 

Banner and Pennant 

Speak to the child O bard of Manhattan, 

To our children all, or north or south of Manhattan, 

Point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all — and yet 

we know not why, 
For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing, 
Only flapping in the wind? 

Poet 

I hear and see not strips of cloth alone, 

I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry, 

I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty 1 

I hear the drums beat and the trumpets blowing, 

I myself move abroad swift-rising flying then, 

I use the wings of the land-bird and use the wings of the 

seabird, and look down as from a height, 
I do not deny the precious results of peace, I see populous 

cities with wealth incalculable, 
I see numberless farms, I see the farmers working in their 

fields or barns, 
I see mechanics working, I see buildings everywhere founded, 

going up : or finish'd, 
I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks 

drawn by the locomotives, 



246 



Leaves of Grass 



I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, 

New Orleans, 
I see far in the West the immense area of grain, I dwell 

awhile hovering, 
I pass to the lumber forests of the North, and again to the 

Southern plantation, and again to California; 
Sweeping the whole I see the countless profit, the busy gather- 
ings, eavn'd wages, 
See the Identity formed out of thirty-eight spacious and 

haughty States (and many more to come), 
See forts on the shores of harbours, see ships sailing in and 

out; 
Then over all (aye! aye!) my little and lengthen'd pennant 

shaped like a sword, 
Runs swiftly up indicating war and defiance — and now the 

halyards have rais'd it, 
Side of my banner broad and blue, side of my starry banner, 
Discarding peace over all the sea and land. 

Banner and Pennant 

Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard ! yet farther, wider cleave I 
No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone, 
We may be terror and carnage, and are so now, 
Not now are we any one of these spacious and haughty States 

(nor any five, nor ten), 
Nor market nor depot we, nor money-bank in the city, 
But these and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the 

mines below, are ours, 
And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great and 

small, 
And the fields they moisten, and the crops and the fruits are 

ours, 
Bays and channels and ships sailing in and out are ours — 

while we over all, 
Over the area spread below, the three or four millions of 

square miles, the capitals, 
The forty millions of people, — O bard! in life and death 

supreme, 
We, even we, henceforth flaunt out masterful, high up above, 
Not for the present alone, for a thousand years chanting 

through you, 
This song to the soul of one poor little child. 



Drum-Taps 247 

Child 

O my father, I like not the houses, 

They will never to be be anything, nor do I like money, 

But to mount up there I would like, O father dear, that banner 

I like, 
That pennant I would be and must be. 

Father 

Child of mine, you fill me with anguish, 
To be that pennant would be too fearful, 
Little you know what it is this day, and after this day, 

for ever, 
It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy everything, 
Forward to stand in front of wars — and O, such wars ! — what 

have you to do with them? 
With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death? 

Banner 

Demons and death then I sing, 

Put in all, aye all will I, sword-shaped pennant for war, 

And a pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of 

children, 
Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land and the liquid wash 

of the sea, 
And the black ships fighting on the sea envelop'd in smoke, 
And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars 

and pines, 
And the whirr of drums and the sound of soldiers marching, 

and the hot sun shining south, 
And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my Eastern 

shore, and my Western shore the same, 
And all between those shores, and my ever running Missis- 
sippi with bends and chutes, 
And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields 

of Missouri, 
The Continent, devoting the whole identity without reserving 

an atom, 
Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all and 

the yield of all, 



2 4 8 



Leaves of Grass 



Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole, 

No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound, 

But out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive 

no more, 
Croaking like crows here in the wind. 

Poet 

My limbs, my veins dilate, my theme is clear at last, 

Banner so broad advancing out of the night, I sing you 

haughty and resolute, 
I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafen'd and 

blinded, 
My hearing and tongue are come to me (a little child taught 

me), 

I hear from above, O pennant of war, your ironical call and 

demand, 
Insensate! Insensate! (yet I at any rate chant you) O 

banner ! 
Not houses of peace indeed are you, nor any nor all their 

prosperity (if need be, you shall again have every one of 

those houses to destroy them, 
You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing 

fast, full of comfort, built with money, 
May they stand fast, then? not an hour except you above them 

and all stand fast) ; 
O banner, not money so precious are you, not farm produce 

you, nor the material good nutriment, 
Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships, 
Not the superb ships with sail-power or steam-power, fetching 

and carrying cargoes, 
Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues— but you as 

henceforth I see you, 
Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars 

(ever-enlarging stars), 
Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touch'd by the sun, 

measuring the sky, 

wt?-i Si ° n u tely SCen and yearn ' d for b ^ one P° or Kttle child, 
While others remain busy or smartly talking, for ever teach- 
ing thrift, thrift) ; 
O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake 
hissing so curious, 



Drum-Taps 249 

/t of reach, an idea only, yet furiously fought for, risking 

bloody death, loved by me, 

So loved — O you banner leading the day with stars brought 
from the night! 

Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all — (abso- 
lute owner of all) — O banner and pennant! 

1 too leave the rest — great as it is, it is nothing — houses, 

machines are nothing — I see them not, 
I see but you, O warlike pennant ! O banner so broad, with 

stripes, I sing you only, 
Flapping up there in the wind. 



RISE, O DAYS, FROM YOUR FATHOMLESS DEEPS 

1 

Rjse, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, 

fiercer sweep, 
Long for my soul hungering gymnastic I devour'd what the 

earth gave me, 
Long I roam'd the woods of the north, long I watch'd 

Niagara pouring, 
I travell'd the prairies over and slept on their breast, I cross'd 

the Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus, 
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to 

sea, 
I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm, 
I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves, 
I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling 

over, 
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds, 
Saw from below what arose and mounted (O superb! O wild 

as my heart, and powerful!), 
Heard the continuous thunder as it bellow'd after the lightning, 
Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning as sudden 

and fast amid the din they chased each other across 

the sky; 
These, and such as these, I, elate, saw— saw with wonder, 

yet pensive and masterful, 
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me, 
Yet there with my soul I fed, I fed content, supercilious. 



250 Leaves of Grass 

2 

'Twas well, soul — 'twas a good preparation you gave me, 

Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill, 

Now we go forth to receive what the earth and sea never 

gave us, 
Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the 

mightier cities, 
Something for us is pouring now more than Niagara pouring. 
Torrents of men (sources and rills of the North-west, are 

you indeed inexhaustible?), 
What, to pavements and homesteads here, what were those 

storms of the mountains and sea? 
What, to passions I witness around me to-day? was the sea 

risen ? 
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds? 
Lo ! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly 

and savage, 
Manhattan rising, advancing with menacing front — Cincinnati, 

Chicago, unchain'd ; 
What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes 

here, 
How it climbs with daring feet and hands — how it dashes ! 
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning — how bright 

the flashes of lightning! 
How Democracy with desperate vengeful port strides on, 

shown through the dark by those flashes of lightning ! 
(Yet mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through 

the dark, 
In a luU of the deafening confusion.) 

3 

Thunder on ! stride on, Democracy ! strike with vengeful 

stroke 1 
And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities ! 
Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms ! you have done me good, 
My soul prepared in the mountains absorbs your immortal 

strong nutriment, 
Long had I walk'd my cities, my country roads through farms, 

only half satisfied, 
One doubt nauseous undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the 

ground before me, 



Drum-Taps 251 

Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, iron- 
ically hissing low; 

The cities I loved so well I abandon'd and left, I sped to 
the certainties suitable to me, 

Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies and 
Nature's dauntlessness, 

I refresh'd myself with it only, I could relish it only, 

I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire — on the water and 
air I waited long; 

But now I no longer wait, I am fully satisfied, I am glutted, 

I have witness'd the true lightning, I have witness'd my cities 
electric, 

I have lived to behold man burst forth and warlike America rise, 

Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary 
wilds, 

No more the mountains roam or sail the stormy sea. 

VIRGINIA— THE WEST 

The noble sire fallen on evil days, 
I saw with hand uplifted, menacing, brandishing, 
(Memories of old in abeyance, love and faith in abeyance), 
The insane knife toward the Mother of All. 

The noble son on sinewy feet advancing, 

I saw, out of the land of prairies, land of Ohio's waters and 

of Indiana, 
To the rescue the stalwart giant hurry his plenteous offspring, 
Drest in blue, bearing their trusty rifles on their shoulders. 

Then the Mother of All with calm voice speaking, 

As to you Rebellious (I seemed to hear her say), why strive 

against me, and why seek my life? 
When you yourself for ever provide to defend me? 
For you provided we Washington — and now these also. 

CITY OF SHIPS 

City of ships ! 

(O the black ships! O the fierce ships! 

O the beautiful sharp-bow'd steamships and sail-ships !) 

City of the world! (for all races are here, 

All the lands of the earth make contributions here) ; 

City of the sea ! city of hurried and glittering tides ! 



252 Leaves of Grass 

City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling 
in and out with eddies and foam! 

City of wharves and stores — city of tall fagades of marble 
and iron I 

Proud and passionate city — mettlesome, made, extravagant 
city! 

Spring up, O city — not for peace alone, but be indeed your- 
self, warlike! 

Fear not — submit to no models but your own, O city! 

Behold me — incarnate me as I have incarnated you! 

I have rejected nothing you offer'd me — whom you adopted 
I have adopted, 

Good or bad I never question you — I love all — I do not con- 
demn anything, 

I chant and celebrate all that is yours — yet peace no more, 

In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine, 

War, red war is my song through your streets, O city! 

THE CENTENARIAN'S STORY 

Volunteer of 1861-2 (at Washington Park, Brooklyn, assisting 
the Centenarian) 

Give me your hand, old Revolutionary, 

The hill-top is nigh, but a few steps (make room, gentlemen), 
Up the path you have follow'd me well, spite of your hun- 
dred and extra years, 
You can walk, old man, though your eyes are almost done, 
Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them 
serve me. 

Rest, while I tell what the crowd around us means, 
On the plain below recruits are drilling and exercising, 
There is the camp, one regiment departs to-morrow, 
Do you hear the officers giving their orders? 
Do you hear the clank of the muskets? 

Why, what comes over you now, old man? 

Why do you tremble and clutch my hand so convulsively? 

The troops are but drilling, they are yet surrounded with 

smiles, 
Around them at hand the well-drest friends and the women, 
While splendid and warm the afternoon sun shines down, 



Drum-Taps 253 

Green the midsummer verdure and fresh blows the dallying 

breeze, 
O'er proud and peaceful cities and arm of the sea between. 

But drill and parade are over, they march back to quarters, 
Only hear that approval of hands 1 hear what a clapping ! 

As wending the crowds now part and disperse — but we, old 

man, 
Not for nothing have I brought you hither — we must remain, 
You to speak in your turn, and I to listen and tell. 

The Centenarian 

When I clutch'd your hand it was not with terror, 

But suddenly pouring about me here on every side, 

And beiow there where the boys were drilling, and up the 

slopes they ran, 
And where tents are pitch'd, and wherever you see south and 

south-east and south-west, 
Over hill, across lowlands, and in the skirts of woods, 
And along the shores, in mire (now hll'd over) came again 

and suddenly raged, 
As eighty-five years a-gone no mere parade receiv'd with 

applause of friends, 
But a battle which I took part in myself — aye, long ago as it 

is, I took part in it, 
Walking then this hill-top, this same ground. 

Aye, this is the ground, 

My blind eyes even as I speak behold it re-peopled from 

graves, 
The years recede, pavements and stately houses disappear, 
Rude forts appear again, the old hoop'd guns are mounted, 
I see the lines of rais'd earth stretching from river to bay, 
I mark the vista of waters, I mark the uplands and slopes, 
Here we lay encamp'd, it was this time in summer also. 

As I talk I remember all, I remember the Declaration, 

It was read here, the whole army paraded, it was read to us 

here, 
By his staff surrounded the General stood in the middle, he 

held up his unsheath'd sword, 
It glitter'd in the sun in full sight of the army. 



254 Leaves of Grass 

'Twas a bold act then— the English war-ships had just arrived, 
We could watch down the lower bay where they lay at anchor, 
And the transports swarming with soldiers. 

A few days more and they landed, and then the battle. 

Twenty thousand were brought against us, 
A veteran force furnish'd with good artillery 

I tell not now the whole of the battle, 

But one brigade early in the forenoon order'd forward to 

engage the red-coats, 
Of that brigade I tell, and how steadily it march'd, 
And how long and well it stood confronting death. 

Who do you think that was marching steadily sternly con- 
fronting death? 
It was the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand strong, 
Rais'd in Virginia and Maryland, and most of them known 
personally to the General. 

Jauntily forward they went with quick step toward Gowanus' 

waters, 
Till of a sudden unlook'd for by defiles through the woods, 

gain'd at night, 
The British advancing, rounding in from the east, fiercely 

playing their guns, 
That brigade of the youngest was cut off and at the enemy's 

mercy. 

The General watch'd them from this hill, 

They made repeated desperate attempts to burst their environ- 
ment, 

Then drew close together, very compact, their flag flying in 
the middle, 

But O from the hills how the cannon were thinning and 
thinning them ! 

It sickens me yet, that slaughter I 

I saw the moisture gather in drops on the face of the Genera 1 ., 

I saw how he wrung his hands in anguish. 

Meanwhile the British manceuvr'd to draw us out for a pitch'd 

battle, 
But we dared not trust the chances of a pitch'd battle. 



Drum-Taps 255 

We fought the fight in detachments, 

Sallying forth we fought at several points, but in each the 

luck was against us, 
Our foe advancing, steadily getting the best of it, push'd us 

back to the works on this hill, 
Till we turn'd menacing here, and then he left us. 



That was the going out of the brigade of the youngest men, 

two thousand strong, 
Few return'd, nearly all remain in Brooklyn. 

That and here my General's first battle, 

No women looking on nor sunshine to bask in, it did not 

conclude with applause, 
Nobody clapp'd hands here then. 

But in darkness, in mist on the ground under a chill rain, 

Wearied that night we lay foil'd and sullen, 

While scornfully laugh'd many an arrogant lord off against 

us encamp'd, 
Quite within hearing, feasting, clinking wine-glasses together 

over their victory. 

So dull and damp and another day, 
But the night of that, mist lifting, rain ceasing, 
Silent as a ghost while they thought they were sure of him, 
my General retreated. 

I saw him at the river-side, 

Down by the ferry lit by torches, hastening the embarcation ; 

My General waited till the soldiers and wounded were all 

passed over, 
And then (it was just ere sunrise), these eyes rested on him 

for the last time. 

Every one else seem'd fill'd with gloom, 
Many no doubt thought of capitulation. 

But when my General pass'd me, 

As he stood in his boat and look'd toward the coming sun, 

I saw something different from capitulation. 



256 Leaves of Grass 

Terminus 

Enough, the Centenarian's story ends, 
The two, the past and present, have interchanged, 
I myself as connecter, as chansonnier of a great future, am 
now speaking. 

And is this the ground Washington trod? 

And these waters I listlessly daily cross, are these the waters 

he cross'd, 
As resolute in defeat as other generals in their proudest 

triumphs ? 

I must copy the story, and send it eastward and westward, 
I must preserve that look as it beam'd on you rivers of 
Brooklyn. 

See — as the annual round returns the phantoms return, 

It is the 27th of August and the British have landed, 

The battle begins and goes against us, behold through the 

smoke Washington's face, 
The brigade of Virginia and Maryland have march'd forth 

to intercept the enemy, 
They are cut off, murderous artillery from the hills plays 

upon them, 
Rank after rank falls, while over them silently droops the flag, 
Baptized that day in many a young man's bloody wounds, 
In death, defeat, and sisters', mothers' tears. 

Ah, hills and slopes of Brooklyn! I perceive you are more 

valuable than your owners supposed; 
In the midst of you stands an encampment very old, 
Stands for ever the camp of that dead brigade. 

CAVALRY CROSSING A FORD 

A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands, 
They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun — 

hark to the musical clank, 
Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering 

stop to drink, 
Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a 

picture, the negligent rest on the saddles, 



Drum-Taps 257 

Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering 

the ford — while, 
Scarlet and blue and snowy white, 
The guidon flags flutter gaily in the wind. 

BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN SIDE 

I see before me now a travelling army halting, 

Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of 
summer, 

Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places ris- 
ing high, 

Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes 
dingily seen, 

The numerous camp-fires scatter'd near and far, some away up 
on the mountain, 

The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, 

flickering, 
And over all the sky — the sky! far, far out of reach, studded, 

breaking out, the eternal stars. 

AN ARMY CORPS ON THE MARCH 

With its cloud of skirmishers in advance, 

With now the sound of a single shot snapping like a whip, and 

now an irregular volley, 
The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press 

on, 
Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun — the dust-cover'd men, 
In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground, 
With artillery interspers'd — the wheels rumble, the horses 

sweat, 
As the army corps advances. 

BY THE BIVOUAC'S FITFUL FLAME 

By the bivouac's fitful flame, 

A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow 

— but first I note, 
The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim 

outline, 
The darkness lit by spots are kindled fire, the silence, 
Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving, 
The shrubs and trees (as I lift my eyes they seem to be 

stealthily watching me), 



258 Leaves of Grass 

While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous 

thoughts, 
Of life and death, of home and the past and loved, and of 

those that are far away; 
A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground, 
By the bivouac's fitful flame. 

COME UP FROM THE FIELDS, FATHER 

Come up from the fields, father, here's a letter from our Pete, 
And come to the front door, mother, here's a letter from thy 
dear son. 

Lo, 'tis autumn, 

Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder, 

Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages with leaves fluttering in the 

moderate wind, 
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang and grapes on the 

trellis'd vines, 
(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines? 
Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing?) 
Above all, lo, the sky so calm, so transparent after the rain, 

and with wondrous clouds, 
Below too, all calm, all vital and beautiful, and the farm 

prospers well. 

Down in the fields all prospers well, 

But now from the fields come, father, come at the daughter's call, 
And come to the entry, mother, to the front door come right 
away. 

Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous, her steps 

trembling, 
She does not tarry to smooth her hair nor adjust her cap. 

Open the envelope quickly, 

O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is sign'd, 

O a strange hand writes for our dear son, O stricken mother's 

soul! 
All swims before her eyes, flashes with black, she catches the 

main words only, 
Sentences broken, gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirm* 

ish, taken to hospital, 
At present low, but will soon be better. 



Drum- Paps 259 

Ah, now the single figure to me, 

Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all its cities and farms, 
Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint, 
By the jamb of a door leans. 

Grieve not so, dear mother (the just-grown daughter speaks 

through her sobs, 
The little sisters huddle around speechless and dismay'd), 
See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better. 

Alas, poor boy, he will never be better (nor maybe needs to be 

better, that brave and simple soul), 
While they stand at home at the door he is dead already, 
The only son is dead. 

But the mother needs to be better, 

She with thin form presently drest in black, 

By day her meals untouch'd, then at night fitfully sleeping, 

often waking, 
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing, 
O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape 

and withdraw, 
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son. 

VIGIL STRANGE I KEPT OX THE FIELD ONE NIGHT 

Vigil strange I kept on the field .one night; 

When you, my son and my comrade, dropt at my side that day, 

One look I but gave which your dear eyes return'd with a look 

I shall never forget, 
One touch of your hand to mine, O boy, reach'd up as you lay 

on the ground, 
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle, 
Till late in the night reliev'd to the place at last again I made 

my way, 
Found you in death so cold, dear comrade, found your body, 

son of responding kisses (never again on earth responding), 
Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew 

the moderate night-wind, 
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the 

battle-field spreading, 
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent nighfr 



260 Leaves of Grass 

But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I 

gazed, 
Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning 

my chin in my hands, 
Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you, 

dearest comrade — not a tear, not a word, 
Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you, my son and my 

soldier, 
As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole, 
Vigil final for you, brave boy (I could not save you, swift was 

your death, 
I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we 

shall surely meet again), 
Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn 

appear'd, 
My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop'd well his form, 
Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and 

carefully under feet, 
And there and then and bathed by the rising run, my son in his 

grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited, 
Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle- 
field dim, 
Vigil for boy of responding kisses (never again on earth re- 
sponding), 
Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as 

day brighten'd, 
i rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in 

his blanket, 
And buried him where he fell. 

A MARCH IN THE RANKS HARD-PREST, AND THE 
ROAD UNKNOWN 

A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown, 
A route through a heavy wood, with muffled steps in the darkness, 
Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant re- 
treating, 
Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim- 
lighted building, 
We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim- 
lighted building, 
Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an im- 
promptu hospital, 



Drum-Taps 261 

Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures 

and poems ever made, 
Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles 

and lamps, 
And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame 

and clouds of smoke, 
By these crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, 

some in the pews laid down, 
At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of 

bleeding to death (he is shot in the abdomen), 
I stanch the blood temporarily (the youngster's face is white 

as a lily), 
Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to 

absorb it all, 
Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity, 

some of them dead, 
Surgeon operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether, 

the odour of blood, 
The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard out- 
side also fill'd, 
Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some 

in the death-spasm sweating. 
An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or 

calls, 
The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of 

the torches, 
These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the 

odour, 
Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, fall in; 
But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile 

gives he me, 
Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the 

darkness, 
Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the 

ranks, 
The unknown road still marching. 

A SIGHT IN CAMP IN THE DAYBREAK GREY 
AND DIM 

A sight in camp in the daybreak grey and dim, 
As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless, 
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hos- 
pital tent, 



262 Leaves of Grass 

Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there un- 

tended lying, 
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket, 
Grey and heavy blanket, folding, covering all. 

Curious I halt and silent stand, 

Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first 

just lift the blanket; 
Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-grey 'd 

hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes ? 
Who are you, my dear comrade? 

Then to the second I step — and who are you, my child and 

darling? 
Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming? 
Then to the third — a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of 

beautiful yellow-white ivory; 
Young man, I think I know you — I think this face is the face 

of the Christ himself, 
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies. 



AS TOILSOME I WANDER'D VIRGINIA'S WOODS 

As toilsome I wanderd Virginia's woods, 

To the music of rustling leaves kick'd by my feet (for 'twas 

autumn), 
I mark'd at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier; 
Mortally v ounded he and buried on the retreat (easily all 

could I understand), 
The halt of a mid-day hour when up ! r.o time to lose — yet 

this sign left, 
On a tablet scrawl'd and nail'd on the tree by the grave, 
Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade. 

Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering. 

Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life, 

Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, 
alone, or in the crowded street, 

Comes before me the unknown soldier's grave, comes the in- 
scription rude in Virginia's woods, 

Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade. 



Drum-Taps 263 

NOT THE PILOT 

Xot the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, 

though beaten back and many times baffled; 
Not the pathfinder penetrating inland weary and long, 
By deserts parch'd, snows chill'd, rivers wet, perseveres till he 

reaches his destination, 
More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to 

compose a march for these States, 
For a battle-call, rousing to arms if need be, years, centuries 

hence. 

YEAR THAT TREMBLED AND REEL'D BENEATH ME 

Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me I 

Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed 

froze me, 
A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me, 
Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself, 
Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled? 
And sullen hymns of defeat? 

THE WOUND-DRESSER 



An old man bending I come among new faces, 

Years looking backward resuming in answer to children, 

Come tell us, old man, as from young men and maidens that 

love me, 
(Arous'd'and angry, I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge 

relentless war, 
But soon my fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd and I resign'd 

myself, 
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the 

dead;) 
Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these 

chances, 
Of unsurpass'd heroes (was one side so brave? the other was 

equally brave;) 
Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth, 
Of those armies so rapid, so wondrous, what saw you to tell us ? 
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics, 
Of hard- fought engagements or sieges tremendous what 

deepest remains? 



264 Leaves of Grass 

2 

maidens and young men I love and that love me, 

What you ask of my days those the strangest and sudden 

your talking recalls, 
Soldier alert I arrive after a long march cover'd with sweat 

and dust, 
In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in 

the rush of successful charge, 
Enter the captur'd works — yet lo, like a swift-running river 

they fade, 
Pass and are gone they fade — I dwell not on soldiers' perils 

or soldiers' joys, 
(Both I remember well — many the hardships, few the joys, 

yet I was content). 
But in silence, in dreams' projections, 

While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on, 
So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints 

off the sand, 
With hinged knees returning 1 enter the doors (while for you 

up there, 
Whoever you are, follow wtihout noise and be of strong heart). 

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, 
Straight and swift to my wounded 1 go, 
Where they lie on the ground atter the battle brought in, 
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground, 
Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof 'd hospital, 
To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return, 
To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss, 
An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail, 
Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and 
fiird again. 

1 onward go, I stop, 

With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds, 

I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable, 

One turns to me his appealing eyes — poor boyl 1 never knew 

you, 
Yet I think 1 could not refuse this moment to die for you, if 

that would save you. 



Drum-Taps 265 

3 

On, on I go (open doors of time! open hospital doors!) 
The crush'd head I dress (poor crazed hand tear not the 

bandage away), 
The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through anc 

through I examine, 
Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet 

life struggles hard, 
(Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death! 
In mercy come quickly). 

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand, 

I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter 
and blood, 

Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv'd neck and side- 
falling head, 

His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the 
bloody stump, 

And has not yet looked on it. 

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep, 

But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking, 

And the yellow-blue countenance see. 

I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound. 
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sick- 
ening, so offensive, 
While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray 
and pail. 

I am faithful, I do not give out, 

The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen, 
These and more I dress with impassive hand (yet deep in my 
breast a fire, a burning flame). 

4 

Thus in silence in dreams' projections, 

Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals, 

The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand, 

I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young, 

Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad, 

(Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd 

and rested, 
Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips N > . 



266 Leaves of Grass 

LONG, TOO LONG, AMERICA 

Long, too long, America, 

Travelling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys 
and prosperity only, 

But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, 
grappling with direst fate and recoiling not, 

And now to conceive and show to the world what your chil- 
dren en-masse really are, 

(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children 
en-masse really are?) 

GIVE ME THE SPLENDID SILENT SUN 

1 

Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling, 

Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard, 

Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows, 

Give me an arbour, give me the trellis'd grape, 

Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me serene-moving animals 

teaching content, 
Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of the 

Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars, 
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers 

where I can walk undisturb'd, 
Give me for marriage a sweet-breath'd woman of whom I 

should never tire, 
Give me a perfect child, give me away aside from the noise 

of the world a rural domestic life, 
Give me to warble spontaneous songs recluse by myself, for 

my own ears only, 
Give me solitude, give ne Nature, give me again O Nature 

your primal sanities ! 

These demanding to have them (tired with ceaseless excite- 
ment, and rack'd by the war-strife); 
These to procure incessantly asking, rising in cries from my 

heart, 
While yet incessantly asking still I adhere to my city, 
Day upon day and year upon year, O city, walking your streets, 
Where you hold me enchain'd a certain time refusing to give 
me up, 



Drum-Taps 267 

Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich'd of soul, you give me 

forever faces ; 
(0 1 see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my 

cries, 
I see my own soul trampling down what it ask'd for). 



Keep your splendid silent sun, 

Keep your woods, O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods. 

Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your corn-fields 

and orchards, 
Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields where the Ninth-month 

bees hum; 
Give me faces and streets — give me these phantoms incessant 

and endless along the trottoirs ! 
Give me interminable eyes — give me women — give me com- 
rades and lovers by the thousand! 
Let me see new ones every day — let me hold new ones by the 

hand every day! 
Give me such shows — give me the streets of Manhattan ! 
Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching — give me the 

sound of the trumpets and drums ! 
(The soldiers in companies or regiments — some starting away, 

flush'd and reckless, 
Some, their time up, returning with thinn'd ranks, young, yet 

very old, worn, marching, noticing nothing;) 
Give me the shores and wharves heavy-fringed with black 

ships ! 
O such for me ! O an intense life, full to repletion and varied ! 
The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me! 
The saloon of the steamer ! the crowded excursion for me ! the 

torchlight procession ! 
The dense brigade bound for the war, with high piled military 

wagons following; 
People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, 

• pageants, 
Manhattan streets with their powerful throbs, with beating 

drums as now, 
The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets 

(even the sight of the wounded), 
Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus ! 
Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me. 



268 Leaves of Grass 

DIRGE FOR TWO VETERANS 

The last sunbeam 
Lightly falls from the finish'd Sabbath, 
On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking, 

Down a new-made double grave. 

Lo, the moon ascending, 
Up from the east the silvery round moon, 
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon. 

Immense and silent moon. 

I see a sad procession, 
And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles, 
All the channels of the city streets they're flooding, 

As with voices and with tears. 

I hear the great drums pounding, 
And the small drums steady whirring, 
And every blow of the great convulsive drums, 

Strikes me through and through. 

For the son is brought with the father, 
(On the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell, 
Two veterans son and father dropt together, 

And the double grave awaits them). 

Now nearer blow the bugles, 
And the drums strike more convulsive, 
And the daylight o'er the pavement quite has faded, 

And the strong dead-march enwraps me. 

In the eastern sky up-buoying, 
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin'd, 
(Tis some mother's large transparent face, 

In heaven brighter glowing). 

O strong dead-march, you please me 1 
O moon immense with your silvery face, you soothe mef 
O my soldiers twain ! O my veterans passing to burial 1 

What I have I also give you. 

The moon gives you light, 
And the bugles and the drums give you music, 
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, 

My heart gives you love. 



Drum-Taps 269 

OVER THE CARNAGE ROSE PROPHETIC A VOICE 

Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice, 

Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of free- 
dom yet, 

Those who love each other shall become invincible, 

They shall yet make Columbia victorious. 

Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious, 

You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder 
of the earth. 

No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers, 

If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one. 

One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian's comrade, 
From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese, 

shall be friends triune, 
More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth. 

To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come, 
Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond 
death. 

It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manl) 

affection, 
The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly, 
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers, 
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades. 

These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron, 
I, ecstatic, O partners ! O lands ! with the love of lovers tie you. 

(Were you looking to be held together by lawyers? 

Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms? 

Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.) 

I SAW OLD GENERAL AT BAY 

I SAW old General at bay, 

(Old as he was, his grey eyes yet shone out in battle like stars), 
His small force was now completely hemmed in, in his works, 
He call'd for volunteers to run the enemy's lines, a desperate 
emergency, 



270 Leaves of Grass 

'l saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks, but two 

or three were selected, 
'I saw them receive their orders aside, they listen' d with care, 

the adjutant was very grave, 
I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their lives. 

THE ARTILLERYMAN'S VISION 

While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are 

over long, 
And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant 

midnight passes, 
And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, 

the breath of my infant, 
There in the room as I wake from sleep this vision presses 

upon me; 
The engagement opens there and then in fantasy unreal, 
The skirmishers begin, they crawl cautiously ahead, I hear the 

irregular snap ! snap ! 
I hear the sound of the different missiles, the short t-h-t! t-h-t! 

of the rifle-balls, 
I see the shells exploding leaving small white clouds, I hear 

the great shells shrieking as they pass, 
The grape like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees 

(tumultuous now the contest rages), 
Ml the scenes at the batteries rise in detail before me again, 
The crashing and smoking, the pride of the men in their pieces, 
The chief-gunner ranges and sights his piece and selects a fuse 

of the right time, 
After firing I see him lean aside and look eagerly off to note 

the effect; 
Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging (the young 

colonel leads himself this time with brandish'd sword), 
I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys (quickly fill'd up, no 

delay), 
I breathe the suffocating smoke, then the flat clouds hover low 

concealing all ; 
Now a Strang lull for a, few seconds, not a shot fired on either 

side, 
Then resumed the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls 

and orders of officers, 
While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to 

my ears a shout of applause (some special success), 



Drum-Taps 271 



And ever the sound of the cannon far or near (rousing even 

in dreams a devilish exultation and all the old mad joy in 

the depths of my soul), 
And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions, batteries, 

cavalry, moving hither and thither, 
(The falling, dying, I heed not, the wounded dripping and red 

I heed not, some to the rear are hobbling) , 
Grime, heat, rush, aide-de-camps galloping by or on a full run, 
With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles 

(these in my vision I hear or see), 
And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-colour'd 

rockets. 

ETHIOPIA SALUTING THE COLOURS 

Who are you, dusky woman, so ancient hardly human, 
With your woolly-white and turban'd head, and bare bony feet? 
Why rising by the roadside here, do you the colours greet? 

('Tis while our army lines Carolina's sands and pines, 
Forth from thy hovel door thou, Ethiopia, com'st to me, 
As under doughty Sherman I march toward the sea). 

Me master years a hundred since from my parents sunder'd, 
A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is caught, 
Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought. 

No further does she say, but lingering all the day, 

Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls her darkling 

eye, 
And courtesies to the regiments, the guidons moving by. 

What is it, fateful woman, so blear, hardly human? 

Why wag your head with turban bound, yellow, red, and green? 

Are the things so strange and marvellous you see or have seen ? 

NOT YOUTH PERTAINS TO ME 

Not youth pertains to me, 

Nor delicatesse, I cannot beguile the time with talk, 
Awkward in the parlour, neither a dancer nor elegant, 
In the learn'd coterie sitting constrain'd and still, for learning 
inures not to me, 



272 Leaves of Grass 

Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me — yet there are two or 

three things inure to me, 
I have nourish'd the wounded and sooth'd many a dying soldier 
And at intervals waiting or in the midst of camp, 
Composed these songs. 



RACE OF VETERANS 

Race of veterans — race of victors 1 

Race of the soil, ready for conflict — race of the conquering 

march ! 
(No more credulity's race, abiding-temper'd race), 
Race henceforth owning no law but the law of itself, 
Race of passion and the storm. 

WORLD, TAKE GOOD NOTICE 

World, take good notice, silver stars fading, 
Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching, 
Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning, 
Scarlet, significant, hands off warning, 
Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores. 

O TAN-FACED PRAIRIE-BOY 

O tan-faced prairie-boy, 

Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift, 

Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at last 

among the recruits, 
You came, taciturn, with nothing to give — we but look'd on 

each other, 
When lo ! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me. 

LOOK DOWN, FAIR M03N 

Look down, fair moon, and bathe this scene, 

Pour softly down night's nimbus floods on faces ghastly, 

swollen, purple, 
On the dead on their backs with arms toss'd wide, 
Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon. 



Drum-Taps 273 

RECONCILIATION 

Word over all, beautiful as the sky, 

Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time 

be utterly lost, 
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly 

softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world; 
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, 
I look where he lies white- faced and still in the coffin — I draw 

near, 
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in 

the coffin. 

HOW SOLEMN AS ONE BY ONE 
(Washington City, 1865) 

How solemn as one by one, 

As the ranks returning worn and sweaty, as the men file by 
where I stand, 

As the faces the masks appear, as I glance at the faces study- 
ing the masks 

(As I glance upward out of this page studying you, dear 
friend, whoever you are), 

How solemn the thought of my whispering soul to each in 
the ranks, and to you, 

I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul, 

the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend. 
Nor the bayonet stab what you really are; 

The soul ! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best, 
Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill, 
Nor the bayonet stab, O friend. 

AS I LAY WITH MY HEAD IN YOUR LAP, 
CAMERADO 

As I lay with my head in your lap, camerado, 
The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the 
open air I resume. 

1 know I am restless and make others so, 

I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death, 
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to un- 
settle them, 



274 Leaves of Grass 

I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could 

ever have been had all accepted me, 
I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions, 

majorities, nor ridicule, 
And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me, 
And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me ; 
Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, 

and still urge you, without the least idea what is our 

destination, 
Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and 

defeated. 



DELICATE CLUSTER 

Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life! 
Covering all my lands — all my seashores lining! 
Flag of death! (how I watch'd you through the smoke of bat- 
tle pressing ! 
How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!) 
Flag cerulean — sunny flag, with the orbs of night dappled! 
Ah. my silvery beauty — ah, my woolly white and crimson! 
Ah, to sing the song of you, my matron mighty! 
My sacred one, my mother. 

TO A CERTAIN CIVILIAN 

Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me? 

Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes? 

Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow? 

Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to under- 
stand — nor am I now ; 

(I have been born of the same as the war was born, 

The drum-corps' rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love well 
the martial dirge, 

With slow wail and convulsive throb leading the officer's 
funeral;) 

What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave 
my works, 

And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with 
piano-tunes, 

For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me. 



Drum Taps 275 

LO, VICTRESS ON THE PEAKS 

Lo, Victress on the peaks, 

Where thou with mighty brow regarding the world, 

(The world, O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee), 

Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them 
all, 

Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee, 

Flauntest now unharm'd in immortal soundness and bloom — 
lo, in these hours supreme, 

No poem proud, I chanting bring to thee, nor mastery's rap- 
turous verse, 

But a cluster containing night's darkness and blood-dripping 
wounds, 

And psalms of the dead. 

SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE 

(Washington City, 1865) 

Spirit whose work is done — spirit of dreadful hours 1 

Ere departing fade from my eyes your forests <-f bayonets; 

Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts (yet onward ever un 

faltering pressing), 
Spirit of many a solemn day and many a savage scene — electric 

spirit, 
That with muttering voice through the war now closed, like 

a tireless phantom flitted, 
Rousing the land with breath of flame, while you beat and 

beat the drum, 
Now as the sound of drum, hollow and harsh to the last, 

reverberates round me, 
As your ranks, your immortal ranks, return, return from th« 

battles, 
As the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders. 
As I look on. the bayonets bristling over their shoulders, 
As those slanted bayonets, whole forests of them appearing in 

the distance, approach and pass on, returning homeward, 
Moving with steady motion, swaying to and fro to the right 

and left, 
Evenly lightly rising and falling while the steps keep time ; 
Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one day, but pale as 

death next day. 



276 



Leaves of Grass 



Touch my mouth ere you depart, press my lips close. 

Leave me your pulses of rage — bequeath them to me — fill me 

with currents convulsive, 
Let them scorch and blister out of my chants when you are 

gone, 
Let them identify you to the future in these songs. 

ADIEU TO A SOLIDER 

Adieu, O soldier, 

You of the rude campaigning (which we shared), 

The rapid march, the life of the camp, 

The hot contention of opposing fronts, the long mancevre, 

Red battles with their slaughter, the stimulus, the strong 

terrific game t 
Spell of all brave and manly hearts, the trains of time through 

you and like of you all fill'd, 
With war and war's expression. 

Adieu, dear comrade, 

Your mission is fulfill'd — but I, more warlike, 

Myself and this contentious soul of mine, 

Still on our own campaigning bound, 

Through untried roads with ambushes, opponents lined, 

Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis, often baffled, 

Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out — aye here, 

To fiercer, weightier battles give expression. 

TURN, O LIBERTAD 

Turn, O Libertad, for the war is over, 

From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, 

resolute, sweeping the world, 
Turn from lands retrospective recording proofs of the past, 
From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past, 
From the chants of the feudal world, the triumphs of kings, 

slavery, caste, 
Turn to the world, the triumphs reserv'd and to come — give up 

that backward world, 
Leave to the singers of hitherto, give them the trailing past, 
But what remains remains for singers for you — wars to come 

are for you, 
(Lo, how the wars of the past have duly inured to you, and 

the wars of the present also inure;) 



Drum-Taps 277 

Then turn, and be not alarm'd, O Libertad— turn your un- 
dying face, 
To where the future, greater than all the past, 
Is swiftly, surely preparing for you. 

TO THE LEAVEN'D SOIL THEY TROD 

To the leaven'd soil they trod calling I sing for the last 
(Forth from my tent emerging for good, loosing, untying the 

tent-ropes), 
In the freshness the forenoon air, in the far-stretching circuits 

and vistas again to peace restored, 
To the fiery fields emanative and the endless vistas beyond, to 

the South and the North, 
To the leaven'd soil of the general Western world to attest my 

songs, 
To the Alleghanian hills and the tireless Mississippi, 
To the rocks I calling sing, and all the trees in the woods, 
To the plains of the poems of heroes, to the prairies spreading 

wide, 
To the far-off sea and the unseen winds, and the sane im- 

palable air; 
And responding they answer all (but not in words), 
The average earth, the witness of war and peace, acknowledges 

mutely, 
The prairie draws me close, as the father to bosom broad the 

son, 
The Northern ice and rain that began me nourish me to the 

end, 
But the hot sun of the South is to fully ripen my songs. 



MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT 
LINCOLN 

WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOM'D 

1 

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, 

And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the 

night, 
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. 

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, 
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, 
And thought of him I love. 



O powerful western fallen star ! 

O shades of night— O moody, tearful night! 

O great star disappear'd— O the black murk that hides the star ! 

O cruel hands that hold me powerless— O helpless soul of me! 

O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul. 



In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white- 
wash'd palings, 

Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves 
of rich green, 

With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the per- 
fume strong I love, 

With every leaf a miracle— and from this bush in the dooryard, 

With^ delicate-colour'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of 
rich green, 

A sprig with its flower I break. 



278 



Memories of President Lincoln 279 
4 

In the swamp in secluded recesses, 

A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song. 

Solitary the thrush, 

The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, 

Sings by himself a song. 

Song of the bleeding throat, 

Death's outlet song of life (for well, dear brother, I know, 

If thou wast not granted to sing thou would'st surely die). 



Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, 

Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets 

peep'd from the ground, spotting the errey debris, 
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the 

endless grass, 
Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud 

in the dark-brown fields uprisen, 
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards, 
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, 
Night and day journeys a coffin. 



Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, 

Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the 

land, 
With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities draped in 

black, 
With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd 

women standing, 
With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the 

night, 
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and 

the unbared heads, 
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre 

faces, 
With dirges through the night, with the shout and voices rising 

strong and solemn, 



280 Leaves of Grass 

With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around the 

coffin, 
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs— where amid 

these you journey. 
With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang, 
Here, coffin that slowly passes, 
I give you my sprig of lilac. 



(Nor for you, for one alone, 

Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring, 
For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you, 
O sane and sacred death. 

All over bouquets of roses, 

O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies, 

But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first, 

Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes, 

With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, 

For you and the coffins all of you, O death.) 

8 

O western orb, saiiing the heaven, 

Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I 

walk'd, 
As I walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night, 
As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night 

after night, 
As you droop'd from the sky low down as if to my side (while 

the other stars all look'd on), 
As we wander'd together the solemn night (for something I 

know not what kept me from sleep), 
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how 

full you were of woe, 
As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool trans- 
parent night, 
As I watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in the netherward 

black of the night, 
As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you, sad 

orb, 
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone. 



Memories of President Lincoln 281 
9 

Sing on there in the swamp, 

singer, bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your 

call, 

1 hear, I come presently, I understand you, 

But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain'd me, 
The star my departing comrade holds and detains me. 

10 

O how shall 1 warble myself for the dead one there I loved? 
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that 

has gone? 
And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him 1 love? 

Sea-winds blown from the east and west, 

Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, 

till there on f he prairies meeting, 
These and with these and the breath of my chant, 
I'll perfume the grave of him I love. 

11 

O what shall I hang on the chamber walls? 

And what shall the pictures be that' I hang on the walls, 

To adorn the burial-house of him I love? 

Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes, 

With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the grey smok% 

lucid and bright, 
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, 

sinking sun, burning, expanding the air, 
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green 

leaves of the trees prolific, 
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with 

a wind-dapple here and there, 
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against 

the sky. and shadows, 
And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of 

chimneys. 
And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the work- 
men homeward returning. 



282 Leaves of Grass 

12 

Lo, body and soul — this land, 

My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurry- 
ing tides, and the ships, 
The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the 

light, Ohio's shores and flashing Missouri, 
And ever the far-spreading prairies cover'd with grass and corn. 
Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty, 
The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes, 
The gentle soft-born measureless light, 
The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon, 
The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars, 
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land. 

13 

Sing on, sing on, you grey-brown bird, 

Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from 

the bushes, 
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines. 

Sing on, dearest brother, warble your reedy song, 
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe. 

O liquid and free and tender! 

O wild and loose to my soul — O wondrous singer ! 

You only I hear — yet the star holds me (but will soon depart), 

Yet the lilac with mastering odour holds me. 

14 

Now while I sat in the day and look'd forth, 

In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, 

and the farmers preparing their crops, 
In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and 

forests, 
In the heavenly aerial beauty (after the perturb'd winds and 

the storms), 
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, 

and the voices of children and women, 
The many-moving sea-tide* and I saw the ships how they 

sail'd, 



Memories of President Lincoln 283 

And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all 

busy with labour, 
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each 

with its meals and minutia of daily usages, 
And the streets how their throbbings throbb'd, and the cities 

pent — lo, then and there, 
Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me 

with the rest, 
Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail, 
And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of 

death. 

Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me, 
And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me, 
And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the 

hands of companions, 
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not, 
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in 

the dimness, 
To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still. 

And the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me, 

The grey-brown bird I know receiv'd us comrades three. 

And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love. 

From the deep secluded recesses, 

From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still, 

Came the carol of the bird. 

And the charm of the carol rapt me, 

As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night, 

And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird. 

Come lovely and soothing death, 

Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, 

In the day, in the night, to all, to each, 

Sooner or later delicate death. 

Prais'd be the fathomless universe, 

For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, 
And for love, sweet love — but praise! praise! praise! 
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool- enfolding death. 



284 Leaves of Grass 

Park mother always gliding near with soft feet, 
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome f 
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, 
' bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come un- 
falteringly. 

Approach strong deliver ess. 

When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the 
dead, 

Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, 

Loved in the flood of thy bliss. death. 

From me to thee glad serenades, 

Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feast- 
ing s for thee, 

And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky 
are fitting. 

And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night. 

The night in silence under many a star, 

The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice 

I know, 
A:\d the soul turning to thee. vast and well-veil'd death, 
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. 

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, 

Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and 

the prairies wide, 
Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming zvharves and 

wavs. 
J float this carol with joy, with joy to thee. death. 

15 

To the tally of my soul, 

Loud and strong kept up the grey-brown bird, 

With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night. 

Loud in the pines and cedars dim, 

Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume, 

And I with my comrades there in the night. 

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, 
As to long panoramas of visions. 



Memories of President Lincoln 285 

And I saw askant the armies, 

I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, 

Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc'd with 

missiles I saw them, 
And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and 

bloody, 
And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs (and all in 

silence), 
And the staffs all splinter'd and broken. 

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, 

And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, 

I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war. 

But I saw they were not as was thought, 

They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not, 

The living remain'd and suffer'd. the mother suffer'd, 

And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd, 

And the armies that remain'd suffer'd. 

16 

Passing the visions, passing the night, 

Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands, 

Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of 

my soul, 
Victorious song death's outlet song, yet varying ever-altering 

song, 
As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, 

flooding the night, 
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet 

again bursting with joy, 
Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven, 
As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses, 
Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves, 
I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with 

spring. 

1 cease from my song for thee, 

From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, com- 
muning with thee, 
O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night. 

Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night, 
The song, the wondrous chant of the grey-brown bird, 



286 Leaves of Grass 

And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul, 

With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance 

full of woe, 
With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the 

bird, 
Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to 

keep, for the dead I laved so well, 
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands — and 

this for his dear sake, 
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, 
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim. 

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! 

O Captain ! my Captain ! our fearful trip is done, 
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring ; 
But O heart! heart! heart! 
O the bleeding drops of red. 
Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 

O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 
Rise up — for you the flag is hung — for you the bugle trills, 
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths — for you the shores 

a-crowding, 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turn- 
ing; 

Here Captain ! dear father ! 

This arm beneath your head ! 
It is some dream that on the deck, 
You've fallen cold and dead. 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, 
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; 
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells ! 
But I with mournful tread, 

Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 



Memories of President Lincoln 287 

HUSH'D BE THE CAMPS TO-DAY 
(May 4, 1865) 

Hush'd be the camps to-day, 

And soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons, 
And each with musing soul retire to celebrate, 
Our dear commander's death. 

No more for him life's stormy conflicts, 
Nor victory, nor defeat — no more time's dark events, 
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky. 
But sing, poet, in our name, 

Sing of the love we bore him — because you, dweller in camp?, 
know it truly. 

As they invault the coffin there, 

Sing — as they close the doors of earth upon him — one verse, 

For the heavy hearts of soldiers. 

THIS DUST WAS ONCE THE MAN 

This dust was once the man, 

Gentle, plain, just, and resolute, under whose cautious hand, 
Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age, 
Was saved the Union of these States. 



BY BLUE ONTARIO'S SHORE 

1 

By blue Ontario's shore, 

As I mused of these warlike days and of peace return'd, and 

the dead that return no more, 
A Phantom gigantic, superb, with stern visage accosted me, 
Chant me the poem, it said, that comes from the soul of 

America, chant me the carol of victory, 
And strike up the marches of Libcrtad, marches more power' 

ful yet, 
And sing me before you go the song of the throes of 

Democracy. 

(Democracy, the destin'd conqueror yet treacherous lip-smiles 

everywhere, 
And death and infidelity at every step.) 



A Nation announcing itself, 

I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated, 

I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own forms. 

A breed whose proof is in time and deeds, 

What we are we are, nativity is answer enough to objections, 

We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded, 

We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves, 

We are executive in ourselves, we are sufficient in the variety 

of ourselves, 
We are the most beautiful to ourselves and in ourselves, 
We stand self-pois'd in the middle, branching thence over the 

world, 
From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to 

scorn. 

Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves, 
Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beauti- 
ful or sinful in ourselves only. 



288 



By Blue Ontario's Shore 289 



(O Mother — O Sisters dear! 

If we are lost, no victor else has destroy'd us, 

It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.) 



Have you thought there could be but a single supreme? 

There can be any number of supremes — one does not counter- 
vail another any more than one eyesight countervails 
another, or one life countervails another. 

All is eligible to all, 

All is for individuals, all is for you, 

No condition is prohibited, not God's or any. 

All comes by the body, only health puts you rapport with the 
universe. 

Produce great Persons, the rest follows. 

4 

Piety and conformity to them that like, 

Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like, 

I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations, 

Crying, Leap from your seats and contend for your lives ! 

I am he who walks the States with a barb'd tongue, question- 
ing every one I meet, 

Who are you that wanted only to be told what you knew 
before ? 

Who are you that wanted only a book to join you in your 
nonsense? 

(With pangs and cries as thine own, O bearer of many chiU 

dren, 
These clamours wild to a race of pride I give.) 

O land, would you he freer than all that has ever been before? 
If you would be freer than all that has been before, come 
listen to me. 



:90 Leaves of Grass 



Fear grace, elegance, civilisation, delicatesse, 
Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice, 
Beware the advancing mortal ripening of Nature, 
Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states 
and men. 



Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected 

materials, 
America brines builders, and brings its own styles. 

\ 
The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work 

and pass'd to other spheres, 
A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done. 

i 
America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own 

at all nazards, 
Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound, initiates the true 

use of precedents, 
Does not repel them or the past or what they have produced 

under their forms, 
Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly 

borne from the house, 
Perceives that it waits a little while in the door, that it was 

fittest for its days, 
That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped 

heir who approaches, 
And that he shall be fittest for his days. 

Any period one nation must lead, 

One land must be the promise and reliance of the future. 

These States are the amplest poem, 

Here is not merely a nation but a teeming Nation of nations, 

Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcast doings 

of the day and night, 
Here is what moves in magnificent masses careless of particulars, 
Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, the 

soul loves, 
Here the flowing trains, here the crowds, equality, diversity, 

the soul loves. 



By Blue Ontario's Shore 291 



Land of lands and bards to corroborate! 

Of them standing among them, one lifts to the light a west- 
bred face, 

To him the hereditary countenance bequeath'd both mother's 
and father's, 

His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees, 

Built of the common stock, having room for far and near, 

Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this land, 

Attracting it body and soul to himself, hanging on its neck 
with incomparable love, 

Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits, 

Making its cities, beginnings, events, diversities, wars, vocal 
in him, 

Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him, 

Mississippi with yearly freshets and changing chutes, Colum- 
bia, Niagara, Hudson, spending themselves lovingly in him, 

If the Atlantic coast stretch or the Pacific coast stretch, he 
stretching with them North or South, 

Spanning between them East and West, and touching what- 
ever is between them, 

Growths growing from him to offset the growths of pine, 
cedar, hemlock, live-oak, locust, chestnut, hickory, cotton- 
wood, orange, magnolia, 

Tangles as tangled in him as any canebrake or swamp, 

He likening sides and peaks of mountains, forests coated with 
northern transparent ice, 

Off him pasturage sweet and natural as savanna, upland 
prairie, 

Through him flights, whirls, screams, answering those of the 
fish-hawk, mocking-bird, night-heron,' and eagle, 

His spirit surrounding his country's spirit, unclosed to good 
and evil, 

Surrounding the essences of real things, old times and present 
times, 

Surrounding just found shores, islands, tribes of red aborigines, 

Weather-beaten vessels, landings, settlements, embryo stature 
and muscle, 

The haughty defiance of the Year One, war, peace, the forma- 
tion of the Constitution, 

The separate States* the simple elastic scheme, the immigrant*) 



292 Leaves of Grass 

The Union always swarming with blatherers and always sure 
and impregnable, 

The unsurvey'd interior, log-houses, clearings, wild animals, 
hunters, trappers, 

Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, temperature, 
the gestation of new States, 

Congress convening every Twelfth-month, the members duly 
coming up from the uttermost parts, 

Surrounding the noble character of mechanics and farmers, 
especially the young men, 

Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships, the gait 
they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand 
in the presence of superiors, 

The freshness and candour of their physiognomy, the copious- 
ness and decision of their phrenology, 

The picturesque looseness of their carriage, their fierceness 
when wrong'd, 

The fluency of their speech, their delight in music, their 
curiosity, good temper, and open-handedness, the whole 
composite make, 

The prevailing ardour and enterprise, the large amativeness, 

The perfect equality of the female with the male, the fluid 
movement of the population, 

The superior marine, free commerce, fisheries, whaling, gold- 
digging, 

Wlharf-hemm'd cities, railroad and steamboat lines intersect- 
ing all points, 

Factories, mercantile life, labour-saving machinery, the North- 
east, North-west, South-west, 

Manhattan firemen, the Yankee swap, southern plantation life, 

Slavery — the murderous, treacherous conspiracy to raise it 
upon the ruins of all the rest, 

On and on to the grapple with it — Assassin ! then your life or 
ours to the stake, and respite no more. 



(Lo, high toward heaven, this day, 

Liberated, from the conqueress' field return'd, 

I mark the new aureola around your head, 

No more of soft astral, but dazzling and fierce, 

With war's flames and the lambent lightnings playing, 

\nd your port immovable where you stand, 



By Blue Ontario's Shore 293 

With sti* the inextinguishable glance and the clinch'd and 

lifted fist, 
And your foot on the neck of the menacing one, the scorner 

utterly crush'd beneath you, 
The menacing arrogant one that strode and advanced with his 

senseless scorn, bearing the murderous knife, 
The wide-swelling one, the braggart that would yesterday do 

so much, 
To-day a carrion dead and damn'd, the despised of all the earth, 
An offal rank, to the dunghill maggots spurn'd.) 

8 

Others take finish, but the Republic is ever constructive and 
ever keeps vista, 

Others adorn the past, but you, O days of the present, 1 
adorn you 

O days of the future I believe in you — I isolate myself fo* 
your sake, 

O America, because you build for mankind I build for you, 

O well-beloved stone-cutters, I lead them who plan with de- 
cision and science, 

Lead the present with friendly hand toward the future. 

(Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age! 
But damn that which spends itself with no thought of the 
stain, pains, dismay, feebleness, it is 1 equeathing.) 



I listened to the Phantom by Ontario's shore, 
I heard the voice arising demanding bards, 
By them all native and grand, by them alone can these States 
be fused into the compact organism of a Nation. 

To hold men together by paper and seal or by compulsion is 

no account, 
That only holds men together which aggregates all in a living 

principle, as the hold of the limbs of the body or the fibres 

of plants. 

Of all races and eras these States with veins full of poetical 
Stuff most need poets, and are to have the greatest, and 
use them the greatest, 



294 Leaves of Grass 

Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much 
as their poets shall. 

(Soul of love and tongue of fire! 

Eye to pierce the deepest deeps and sweep the world! 
Ah, Mother, prolific and full in all besides, yet how long 
barren, barren?) 

10 

Of these States the poet is the equable man, 

Not in him but off from him things are grotesque, eccentric, 
fail of their full returns, 

Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is bad, 

He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, 
neither more nor less, 

He is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key, 

He is the equaliser of his age and land, 

He supplies what wants supplying, he checks what wants check- 
ing, 

In peace out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large, rich, 
thrifty, building populous towns, encouraging agriculture, 
arts, commerce, lighting the study of man, the soul, health, 
immortality, government, 

In war he is the best backer of the war, he fetches artillery as 
good as the engineer's, he can make every word he speaks 
draw blood, 

The years straying toward infidelity he withholds by his steady 
faith, 

He is no arguer, he is judgment (Nature accepts him abso- 
lutely), 

He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun falling 
round a helpless thing, 

As he sees the farthest he has the most faith, 

His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things, 

In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent, 

He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denoue- 
ment, 

He sees eternity in men and women, he does not see men 
and women as dreams or dots. 

For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals, 
For that, the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders, 



By Blue Ontario's Shore 295 

The attitude of him cheers up slaves and horrifies foreign 
despots. 

Without extinction is Liberty, without retrograde is Equality, 
They live in the feelings of young men and the best women, 
(Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of the earth 
been always ready to fall for Liberty). 

11 

For the great Idea, 

That, O my brethren, that is the mission of poets. 

Songs of stern defiance ever ready, 

Songs of the rapid arming ai.d the march, 

The flag of peace quick-folded, and instead the flag we know, 

Warlike flag of the great Idea. 

(Angry cloth I saw there leaping! 

I stand again in leaden rain your flapping folds saluting, 

I sing you over all, flying beckoning through the fight — 

O the hard-contested fight! 
The cannons ope their rosy-flashing muzzles — the hurtled 

balls scream, 
The battle-front forms amid the smoke — the volleys pour 

incessant from the line, 
Hark, the ringing word Charge! — now the tussle and the 

furious maddening yells, 
Now the corpses tumble curl'd upon the ground, 
Cold, cold in death, for precious life of you, 
Angry cloth I saw there leaping.) 

12 

Are you he who would assume a place to teach or be a 

poet here in the States? 
The place is august, the terms obdurate. 

Who would assume to teach here may well prepare him- 
self body and mind, 
He may well survey, ponder, arm, fortify, harden, make 

lithe himself, 
He shall surely be question'd beforehand by me with 

many and stern questions. 



296 



Leaves of Grass 



Who are you indeed who would talk or sing to America? 

Have you studied out the land, its idioms and men? 

Have you learn'd the physiology, phrenology, politics, 
geography, pride, freedom, friendship of the land? 
its substratums and objects? 

Have you consider'd the organic compact of the first day 
of the first year of Independence, sign'd by the Com- 
missioners, ratified by the States, and read by Wash- 
ington at the head of the army? 

Have you possess'd yourself of the Federal Constitution? 

Do you see who have left all feudal processes and poems 
behind them, and assumed the poems and processes 
of Democracy? 

Are you faithful to things? do you teach what the land 
and sea, the bodies of men, womanhood, amativeness, 
heroic angers, teach? 

Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities? 

Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies, 
whirls, fierce contentions? are you very strong? 
are you really of the whole People? 

Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere 
religion? 

Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? ani- 
mating now to life itself? 

Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of these 
States? 

Have you too the old ever-fresh forbearance and impar- 
tiality? 

Do you hold the like love for those hardening to matur- 
ity? for the last-born? little and big? and for the 
errant? 

What is this you bring my America? 

Is it uniform with my country? 

Is it not something that has been better told or done 
before? 

Have you not imported this or the spirit of it in some 
ship? 

Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness? — is the 
good old cause in it? 

Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, poli- 
ticians, literats, of enemies' lands? 

Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still 
here? 



By Blue Ontario's Shore 297 

Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners? 

Does it sound with trumpet-voice the proud victory of 
the Union in that secession war? 

Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside? 

Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, to appear 
again in my strength, gait face? 

Have real employments contributed to it? original makers, 
not mere amanuenses? 

Does it meet modern discoveries, calibres, facts, face to 
face? 

What does it mean to American persons, progresses, 
cities? Chicago, Kanada, Arkansas? 

Does it see behind the apparent custodians, the real cus- 
todians standing, menacing, silent, the mechanics, 
Manhattanese, Western men, Southerners, significant 
alike in their apathy and in the promptness of their love? 

Does it see what finally befalls, and has always finally 
befallen, each temporiser, patcher, outsider, partialist, 
alarmist, infidel, who has ever ask'd anything of America? 

What mocking and scornful negligence? 

The track strew'd with the dust of skeletons, 

By the roadside others disdainfully toss'd. 

13 

Rhymes and rhymers pass away, poems distill'd from 

poems pass away, 
The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave 

ashes, 
Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the soil 

of literature, 
America justifies itself, give it time, no disguise can de- 
ceive it or conceal from it, it is impassive enough, 
Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to meet 

them, 
If its poets appear it will in due time advance to meet 

them, there is no fear of mistake, 
(The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr'd till his 

country absorbs him as affectionately as he has 

absorb'd it). 

He masters whose spirit masters, he tastes sweetest whc 
results sweetest in the long run. 



2 9 8 



Leaves of Grass 



The blood of the brawn beloved of time is unconstraint ; 

In the need of songs, philosophy, an appropriate native 
grand-opera, shipcraft, any craft. 

He or she is greatest who contributes the greatest orig- 
inal practical example. 

Already a nonchalant breed, silently emerging, appears 

on the streets, 
People's lips salute only doers, lovers, satisfiers, positive 

knowers, 
There will shortly be no more priests, I say their work is 

done, 
Death is without emergencies here, but life is perpetual 

emergencies here, 
Are your body, days, manners, superb? after death you 

shall be superb, 
Justice, health, self-esteem, clear the way with irresistible 

power; 
How dare you place anything before a man? 

14 

Fall behind me States! 

A man before all — myself, typical, before all. 

Give me the pay I have served for, 

Give me to sing the songs of the great Idea, take all the 

rest, 
I have loved the earth, sun, animals, I have despised riches, 
I have given alms to every one that ask'd, stood up for the 

stupid and crazy, devoted my income and labour to 

others, 
Hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience 

and indulgence toward the people, taken off my hat 

to nothing known or unknown, 
Gone freely with powerful uneducated persons and with 

the young, and with the mothers of families, 
Read these leaves to myself in the open air, tried them 

by trees, stars, rivers, 
Dismiss'd whatever insulted my own soul or denied my 

body, 
Claim'd nothing to myself which I have not carefully 

claim'd for others on the same terms, 



By Blue Ontario's Shore 299 

Sped to the camps, and comrades round and accepted 
from every State, 

(Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean'd to 
breathe his last, 

This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish'd, rais'd, re- 
stored, 

To life recalling many a prostrate form) ; 

1 am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of 
the taste of myself,, 

Rejecting none, permitting all. 

(Say, O Mother, have I not to your thought been faithful? 
Have I not through life kept you and yours before me?) 

15 

I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things, 
It is not the earth, it is not America who is so great, 
It is I who am great or to be great, it is You up there, 

or any one, 
It is to walk rapidly through civilisations, governments, 

theories, 
Through poems, pageants, shows, to form individuals. 

Underneath all, individuals. 

I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores in- 
dividuals, 

The American compact is altogether with individuals. 

The only government is that which makes minute of 
individuals, 

The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly 
to one single individual — namely to You. 

(Mother! with subtle sense severe, with the naked sword 
in your hand, 

I saw you at last refuse to treat but directly with in- 
dividuals.) 

16 

Underneath all, Nativity, 

I swear I will stand by my own nativity, pious or im- 
pious so be it; 



300 Leaves of Grass 

I swear I am charm'd with nothing except nativity, 
Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful from 
nativity. 

Underneath all is the Expression of love for men and 

women, 
(I swear I have seen enough of mean and impotent modes 

of expressing love for men and women, 
After this day I take my own modes of expressing love 

for men and women). 

I swear I will have each quality of my race in myself, 
(Talk as you like, he only suits these States whose man- 
ners favour the audacity and sublime turbulence of 
the States). 

Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, Nature, govern- 
ments, ownerships, I swear I perceive other lessons, 

Underneath all to me is myself, to you yourself (the 
same monotonous old song). 

17 

I see flashing that this America is only you and me. 
its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me, 

Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, are you and me, 

Its Congress is you and me, the officers, capitols, armies, 

ships, are you and me, 
Its endless gestations of new States are yow and me, 
The war (that war so bloody and grim, the war I will 

henceforth forget), was you and me, 
Natural and artificial are you and me, 

Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me, 
Past, present, future, are } r ou and me. 

1 dare not shirk any part of myself, 
Not any part of America good or bad, 

Not to build for that which builds for mankind, 

Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the sexes, 

Not to justify science nor the march of equality, 

Nor to feed the arrogant blood of the brawn belov'd of time. 

I am for those that have never been master'd, 
For men and women whose tempers have never been 
master'd, 



By Blue Ontario's Shore 301 

For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never 

master. 
I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth, 
Who inaugurate one to inaugurate all. 

I will not be outfaced by irrational things, 

I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon 

me, 
I will make cities and civilisations defer to me, 
This is what I have learnt from America — it is the 

amount, and it I teach again. 

(Democracy, while weapons were everywhere aim'd at 

your breast, 
I saw you serenely give birth to immortal children, saw in 

dreams your dilating form, 
Saw you with spreading mantle covering the world.) 

18 

I will confront these shows of the day and night, 

[ will know if I am to be less than they, 

I will see if I am not as majestic as they, 

I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they, 

I will see if I am to be less generous than they, 

I will see if I have no meaning, while the nouses and 

ships have meaning, 
I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough for 

themselves, and I am not to be enough for myself. 

I match my spirit against yours you orbs, growths, moun- 
tains, brutes, 

Copious as you are I absorb you all in myself, and be- 
come the master myself, 

America isolated yet embodying all, what is it finally ex- 
cept myself? 

These States, what are they except myself? 

I know now why the earth is gross, tantalising, wicked, it 

is for my sake, 
I take you specially to be mine, you terrible, rude forms, 

(Mother, bend down, bend close to me your face, 



302 Leaves of Grass 

I know not what these plots and wars and deferments 

are for, 
I know not fruition's success, but I know that through 

war and crime your work goes on y and must yet go 

on.) 

19 

Thus by blue Ontario's shore. 

While the winds fann'd me and the waves came trooping 

toward me, 
I thrill'd with the power's pulsations, and the charm of 

my theme was upon me, 
Till the tissues that held me parted their ties upon me. 

And I saw the free souls of poets, 
The loftiest bards of past ages strode before me, 
Strange large men, long unwaked, undisclosed, were dis- 
closed to me. 

20 

O my rapt verse, my call, mock me notl 

Not for the bards of the past, not to invoke them have 

I launch'd you forth, 
Not to call even those lofty bards here by Ontario's 

shores, 
Have I sung so capricious and loud my savage song. 

Bards for my own land only I invoke 

(For the war, the war is over, the field is clear'd), 

Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and 

onward, 
To cheer, O Mother, your boundless expectant soul. 

Bards of the great Idea! bards of the peaceful inventions! 
(for the war, the war is over!) 

Yet bards of latent armies, a million soldiers waiting 
ever-ready, 

Bards with songs as from burning coals or the lightning's 
fork'd stripes! 

Ample Ohio's, Kanada's bards — bards of California! in- 
land bards — bards of the war! 

You by my charm I invoke. 



By Blue Ontario's Shore 303 

REVERSALS 

Let that which stood in front go behind, 
Let that which was behind advance to the front, 
Let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions, 
Let the old propositions be postponed, 
Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself, 
Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except ki her- 
self. 



INDEX QF FIRST LINES 

Page 

Aboard at a ship's helm 222 

A California song 178 

Adieu, O soldier 276 

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road 125 

After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds 226 

Ages and ages returning at intervals 93 

A glimpse though an interstice caught.... - s Ill 

A great year and place 202 

(Ah, little recks the labourer 169 

A leaf for hand in hand Ill 

A line in long array where they wind betwixt green 

islands 256 

All you are doing and saying is to America dangled 

mirages 234 

Always our old f euillage ! 146 

A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road 

unknown 260 

A mask, a perpetual natural disguiser of herself 237 

Among the men and women the multitude 113 

And now, gentlemen 103 

An old man bending I come among new faces 263 

A promise to California 110 

Are you the new person drawn toward me? 105 

Arm'd year — year of the struggle 241 

As Adam early in the morning 96 

As I ebb'd with the ocean of life 219 

A sight in camp in the day break grey and dim 261 

As I lay with my head in your lap, camerado 273 

As I pondered in silence 

A song for occupations ! 182 

A song of the rolling earth, and of words according 189 

As toilsome I wander'd Virginia's woods 262 

A thousand perfect men and women appear 238 

A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing 

is lacking ; 38 

305 



306 



Leaves of Grass 



Page 

Beat! beat! drums! — blowi bugles! blow! 242 

Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much 7 

Behold this swarthy face, these grey eyes 107 

By blue Ontario's shore 288 

By the bivouac's fitful flame 257 

City of orgies, walks, and joys 107 

City of ships ! t . . . 251 

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble 100 

Come my tan-faced children 19? 

Come up from the fields, father, here's a letter from 

our Pete 258 

Come, said the Muse 195 

Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life! 274 

Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me? 274 

Earth, my likeness Ill 

Facing west from California's shores 96 

Fast-anchor'd eternal O Love! O woman I love! 113 

First O songs for a prelude 239 

Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face 135 

For him I sing 6 

Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts 232 

From Paumanok starting I fly like a bird 242 

From pent-up aching rivers 79 

Full of life now, compact, visible 114 

<^ive me the splendid silent sun with all his beams 

full-dazzling 266 

Give me your hand, old Revolutionary 252 

Gliding o'er all, through all 237 

Hast never come to thee an hour 237 

Here, take this gift 8 

Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest 

lasting 110 

Hold it up sternly — see this it sends back (who is 

it? is it vou?) 231 

How solemn as one by one 273 

*!rw thev are provided for upon the earth (appearing 

at intervals) 7 



Index of First Lines 307 

Page 

Hush'd be the camps to-day , 287 

I am he that aches with amorous love 94 

I celebrate myself, and sing myself 24 

I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the 

attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth.. Ill 

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear 9 

I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this 

puzzle the New World 3 

I heard you solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last 

Sunday morn I pass'd the church 95 

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to 

destroy institutions 108 

I met a seer 4 

In cabin'd ships at sea 2 

In paths untrodden 97 

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing 107 

I saw old General at bay 269 

I see before me now a travelling army halting 257 

I see the sleeping babe nestling the breast of its 

mother 236 

I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads 

itself grandly as it pours in the great sea 238 

I sing the body electric 81 

I sit and look upon all the sorrows of the world 

and upon all oppression and shame 234 

Let that which stood in front go behind 303 

Locations and times — what is it in me that meets 

them all 238 

Long, too long, America 266 

Look down, fair moon, and bathe this scene 272 

Lo, the unbounded sea 9 

Lover divine and perfect Comrade 232 

Lo, Victress on the peaks 275 

Many things to absorb I teach to help you become 

eleve of mine 112 

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature 8 



3o8 



Leaves of Grass 



Page 

Myself and mine gymnastic ever 203 

Native moments — when you come upon me — ah, you 

are here now 94 

No labour-saving machine 110 

Not heat flames up and consumes 106 

Not heaving from my ribb'd breast only 102 

Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship 
into port, though beaten back and many times 

baffled 263 

Not youth pertains to me 271 

Now list to my morning's romanza, I tell the signs 

of the Answerer 141 

O a new song, a free song 243 

O Captain 1 my Captain 1 our fearful trip is done 286 

Of Equality— as if it harm'd me, giving others the 
same chances and rights as myself — as if it were 
not indispensable to my own rights that others 

possess the same 237 

Of Justice — as if Justice could be anything but the 
same ample law, expounded by natural judges and 

saviours, 237 

Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness 237 

Of ownership — as if one fit to own things could not 
at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them 

into himself or herself 233 

Of the terrible doubt of appearances 102 

O Hymen ! O hymenee ! why do you tantalise me thus 94 
O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring.. 234 

On a flat road runs the well-train'd runner 236 

Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my 
brain for future use with its shows, architecture, 

customs, traditions 95 

One hour to madness and joy! furious! O confine 

me not ! 92 

One's-self I sing, a simple separate person 1 

On journeys through the States we start 8 



Index of First Lines 309 

Page 
Only themselves understand themselves and the like 

of themselves 233 

On the beach at night 223 

On the beach at night alone 224 

O take my hand, Walt Whitman! 115 

O tan-faced prairie-boy 272 

O to make the most jubilant song! 151 

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking 213 

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop 

gently to me 93 

Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice 269 

Over the Western sea hither from Niphon come.... 209 
O you whom I often and silently come where you 

are that I may be with you 113 

Passing stranger I you do not know how longingly 

I look upon you 108 

Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! 10 

Race of veterans — race of victors! 272 

Recorders ages hence 104 

Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you 

loftier, fiercer sweep 249 

Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the 

little that is Good steadily hastening towards 

immortality 236 

Roots and leaves themselves alone are these 105 

Scented herbage of my breast 97 

Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries 10 

Silent and amazed even when a little boy 236 

Skirting the river road (my forenoon walk, my rest) 235 
Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for 

fear I effuse unreturn'd love 112 

Spirit whose work is done — spirit of dreadful hours! 275 

Spontaneous me, Nature 90 

Starting from fish-shape Paumanok where I was born 12 

Still though the one I sing 10 

Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak 

to me, why should }'ou not speak to me? 11 



310 Leaves of Grass 

Page 
Suddenly out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair 

of slaves 230 

Tears ! tears ! tears 1 221 

That shadow my likeness that goes to and fro 

seeking livelihood, chattering, chaffering 113 

The last sunbeam 268 

The noble sire fallen on evil days 251 

The prairie-grass dividing, its special odour breathing 109 

These I singing in spring collect for lovers 101 

The world below the brine 224 

This dust was once the man 287 

This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone 108 
Thither as I look I see each result and glor}' retrac- 
ing itself and nestling close, always obligated.. 9 
Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the 

same as 1 11 

Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm 222 

Through the ample open door of the peaceful 

country barn 236 

To-day a rude brief recitative 225 

To get betimes in Boston town I rose this morning 

early 228 

To the East and to the West. 112 

7o thee, old cause! 3 

To the garden, the world anew ascending 79 

To the leaven'd soil they trod calling I sing for 

the last 277 

To the States or any one of them, or any city of the 

States, 7 

Trickle drops! my blue veins leaving! 106 

Turn, O Libertad, for the war is over 276 

Vigil strange I kept on the field one night 259 

Weapon shapely, naked, wan 158 

We two boys together clinging 110 

We two, how long we were fool'd 93 

What place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise 

the siege? 10 



Index of First Lines 311 

Page 

What think you I take my pen in hand to record?.. 112 

What you give me I cheerfully accept 235 

When I heard at the close of the day how my name 

had been receiv'd with plaudits in the capitol, still 

it was not a happy night for me that follow'd.. 104 

When I heard the learned astronomer 233 

When I peruse the conquer'd fame of heroes and the 

victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the 

generals 109 

When I read the book, the biography famous 7 

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd 278 

While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the 

wars are over long 270 

Who are you, dusky woman, so ancient hardly human 271 

Whoever 3>-ou are holding me now in hand 99 

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks 

of dreams 200 

Why reclining, interrogating? why myself and ail 

drowsing 238 

Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running 226 

With antecedents 206 

With its cloud of skirmishers in advance 257 

Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young 236 

Word over all, beautiful as the sky 273 

World, take good notice, silver stars fading 272 

Year of meteors ! brooding year ! 205 

Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me? 263 

Youth, large, lusty, loving — youth full of grace, force, 

fascination 194 

You who celebrate bygones . ' 



MODERN LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS 
Complete List of Titles in THE MODERN LIBRARY 

For convenience in ordering please use number at right of title 



ADAMS, HENRY 
AIKEN, CONRAD 

AIKEN, CONRAD 
ANDERSON, SHERWOOD 
ANDERSON, SHERWOOD 
ANDREYEV, LEONID 

APULEIUS, LUCIUS 
ARTZIBASHEV, MICHAEL 
BALZAC 
BAUDELAIRE 
BEARDSLEY, AUBREY 
BEEBE, WILLIAM 
BEERBOHM, MAX 
BENNETT, ARNOLD 
BIERCE, AMBROSE 
BLAKE, WILLIAM 
BOCCACCIO 
BRONTE, EMILY 
BUTLER, SAMUEL 
BUTLER, SAMUEL 
CABELL, JAMES BRANCH 
CABELL, JAMES BRANCH 
CARPENTER, EDWARD 
CARROLL, LEWIS 
CASANOVA, JACQUES 
CELLINI, BENVENUTO 
CERVANTES 
CHAUCER 

CHESTERTON, G. K. 
CONRAD, JOSEPH 
CRANE, STEPHEN 
D'ANNUNZIO, GABRIELE 
D'ANNUNZIO, GABRIELE 
D'ANNUNZIO, GABRIELE 
DAUDET, ALPHONSE 
DEFOE, DANIEL 
DEWEY, JOHN 
DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR 
DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR 
DOUGLAS, NORMAN 
DOUGLAS, NORMAN 
DOWSON, ERNEST 
DREISER, THEODORE 
DREISER, THEODORE 
DUMAS, ALEXANDRE 
DUMAS, ALEXANDRE 
DUNSANY, LORD 



The Education of Henry Adams 76 
A Comprehensive Anthology of 

American Verse 101 
Modern American Poetry 127 
Poor White 115 
Winesburg, Ohio 104 
The Seven That Were Hanged, and 

the Red Laugh 45 
The Golden Ass 88 
Sanine 189 
Short Stories 40 
Prose and Poetry 70 
64 Reproductions 42 
Jungle Peace 30 
Zuleika Dobson 116 
The Old Wives' Tale 184 
In the Midst of Life 133 
Poems 91 

The Decameron 71 
Wuthering Heights 106 
Erewhon 136 
The Way of All Flesh 13 
Beyond Life 25 
The Cream of the Jest 126 
Love's Coming of Age 51 
Alice in Wonderland, etc. 79 
Memoirs of Casanova 165 
Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini 3 
Don Quixote 174 
The Canterbury Tales 161 
Man Who Was Thursday 35 
Lord Jim 186 

Men, Women and Boats 102 
Flame of Life 65 
The Child of Pleasure 98 
The Triumph of Death 112 
Sappho 85 
Moll Flanders 122 
Human Nature and Conduct 173 
The Brothers Karamazov 151 
Poor People 10 
Old Calabria I4I 
South Wind 5 
Poems and Prose 74 
Free, and Other Stories 50 
Twelve Men 148 
Camille 69 

The Three Musketeers 1 43 
A Dreamer's Tales 34 



EDMAN, IRWIN 
ELLIS, HAYELOCK 
ELLIS, HAVELOCK 
FIELDING, HENRY 
FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE 
FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE 
FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE 
FRANCE, ANATOLE 
FRANCE, ANATOLE 
FRANCE, ANATOLE 
FRANCE, ANATOLE 
FRANCE, ANATOLE 
GAUTIER, THEOPHILE 
GEORGE, VV. L. 
GIDE, ANDRE 
GILBERT, W. S. 
GILBERT, W. S. 
GISSING, GEORGE 
GISSING, GEORGE 
GOETHE 
GORKY, MAXIM 

GOURMONT, REMY DE 
GOURMONT, REMY DE 
HARDY, THOMAS 
HARDY, THOMAS 
HARDY, THOMAS 
HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL 
HEARN, LAFCADIO 
HECHT, BEN 
HEMINGWAY, ERNEST 
HOMER 
HOMER 

HUDSON, W. H. 
HUDSON, W. H. 
HUNEKER, JAMES G. 
HUXLEY, ALDOUS 
HUXLEY, ALDOUS 
HUYSMANS, J. K. 
IBSEN, HENRI K 
IBSEN, HENRI K 

IBSEN, HENRIK 

JAMES, HENRY 
JAMES, HENRY 
JAMES, WILLIAM 
JOYCE, JAMES 
JOYCE, JAMES 

KENT, ROCKWELL 
KOMROFF, MANUEL 
LAWRENCE, D. H. 



The Philosophy of Plato 181 

The Dance of Life 160 

The New Spirit 95 

Tom Jones 185 

Madame Bovary 28 

Salammbo 118 

Temptation of St. Anthony 92 

Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard 22 

The Oueen Pedauque no 

The Red Lily 7 

The Revolt of the Angels 1 1 

Thais 67 

Mile. De Maupin 53 

A Bed of Roses 75 

The Counterfeiters 187 

The Mikado, Iolanthe, etc. 26 

Pinafore and Other Plays 113 

New Grub Street 125 

Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft 46 

Faust 177 

Creatures That Once Were Men and 

Other Stories 48 
A Night in the Luxembourg 120 
A Virgin Heart 131 
Jude the Obscure 135 
The Mayor of Casterbridge 17 
The Return of the Native 121 
The Scarlet Letter 93 
Some Chinese Ghosts 130 
Erik Dorn 29 
The Sun Also Rises 170 
The Iliad 166 
The Odyssey 167 
Green Mansions 89 
The Purple Land 24 
Painted Veils 43 
A Virgin Heart 131 
Point Counter Point 180 
Against the Grain 183 
A Doll's House, Ghosts, etc. 6 
Hedda Gabler, Pillars of Society, The 

Master Builder 36 
The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm,The 

League of Youth 54 
Daisy Miller, etc. 63 
The Turn of the Screw 169 
The Philosophy of William James 114 
Dubliners 124 
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young 

Man 145 
Wilderness 182 
Oriental Romances 55 
The Rainbow 128 



LAWRENCE, D. H. 
LEWISOHN, LUDWIG 
LOTI, PIERRE 
MACY, JOHN 

MANSFIELD, KATHERINE 
MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET 
MAUPASSANT, GUY DE 
MAUPASSANT, GUY DE 
MAUPASSANT, GUY DE 
MENKEN, H. L. 
MELVILLE, HERMAN 
MEREDITH, GEORGE 
MEREDITH, GEORGE 
MEREJKOWSKI, DMITRI 
MEREJKOWSKI, DMITRI 
MEREJKOWSKI, DMITRI 
MISCELLANEOUS 



MOLIERE 
MOORE, GEORGE 
MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER 
NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH 
NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH 
NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH 
NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH 
O'NEILL, EUGENE 
O'NEILL, EUGENE 
PAINE, THOMAS 
PATER, WALTER 
PATER, WALTER 
PEPYS, SAMUEL 
PETRONIUS ARBITER 
POE, EDGAR ALLAN 
PREVOST, ANTOINE 
PROUST, MARCEL 
PROUST, MARCEL 
RABELAIS 
RENAN, ERNEST 
RODIN 



Sons and Lovers 109 

Upstream 123 

Mme. Chrysantheme 94 

The Spirit of American Literature 56 

The Garden Party 129 

Of Human Bondage 176 

Love and Other Stories 72 

Mile. Fifi, and 12 Other Stories 8 

Une Vie 57 

Selected Prejudices 107 

Moby Dick. 119 

Diana of the Crossways 14 

The Ordeal of Richard Feverel 134 

The Death of the Gods 153 

Peter and Alexis 175 

The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci 138 

An Anthology of American Negro 
Literature 163 

A Modern Book of Criticism 81 

Best Ghost Stories 73 

Best Amer. Humorous Short Stories 87 

Best Russian Short Stories 18 

Four Famous Greek Plays 158 

Fourteen Great Detective Stories 144 

Great Modern Short Stories 168 

Including stories by Joseph Conrad, 
D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mans- 
field, Glenway Westcott. 

The Making of Man, An Outline of 
Anthropology 149 

Outline of Abnormal Psychology 152 

Outline of Psychoanalysis 66 

Plays 78 

Confessions of a Young Man 16 

Parnassus on Wheels 190 

Beyond Good and Evil 20 

Ecce Homo and the Birth of Tragedy 68 

Genealogy of Morals 62 

Thus Spake Zarathustra 9 

The Emperor Jones and The Straw I46 

Seven Plays of the Sea 1 1 1 

Writings 108 

The Renaissance 86 

Marius the Epicurean 90 

Samuel Pepys' Diary 103 

The Satyricon 156 

Best Tales 82 

Manon Lescaut 85 

Swann's Way 59 

Within A Budding Grove 172 

Gargantua and Pantagruel 4 

The Life of Jesus I40 

64 Reproductions 41 



ROSTAND, EDMOND 
RUSSELL, BERTRAND 
SALTUS, EDGAR 
SCHNITZLER, ARTHUR 
SCHNITZLER, ARTHUR 
SCHOPENHAUER 
SCHOPENHAUER 
SCHREINER, OLTVE 
SHAW, G. B. 
SMOLLETT, TOBIAS 
SPINOZA 
STENDHAL 
STERNE, LAURENCE 
STRINDBERG, AUGUST 
SUDERMANN, HERMANN 
SUDERMANN, HERMANN 
SUETONIUS 
SWIFT, JONATHAN 

SWINBURNE, CHARLES 
SYMONDS, JOHN A. 
TCHEKOV 
TCHEKOV 

THOMPSON, FRANCIS 
TOLSTOY, LEO 
TOLSTOY, LEO 
TOLSTOY, LEO 

TOMLINSON, H. M. 
TURGENEV, IVAN 
TURGENEV, IVAN 
VAN LOON, HENDRIK W. 
VAN VECHTEN, CARL 
VILLON, FRANCOIS 
VOLTAIRE 
WALPOLE, HUGH 
WELLS, H. G. 
WHISTLER, J. McNEIL 
WHITMAN, WALT 
WILDE, OSCAR 

WILDE, OSCAR 
WILDE, OSCAR 
WILDE, OSCAR 
WILDE, OSCAR 
WILDE, OSCAR 

WILDER, THORNTON 
WOOLF, VIRGINIA 
YEATS, W. B. 
YOUNG, G. F. 
ZOLA, EMILE 

[ 



N 



Cyrano de Bergerac 154 

Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell 5 37 

The Imperial Orgy 139 

Anatol, Green Cockatoo, etc. 32 

Bertha Garlan 39 

The Philosophy of Schopenhauer 59. 

Studies in Pessimism 12 

The Story of an African Farm 13 2 

An Unsocial Socialist 15 

Humphrey Clinker 1^9 

The Philosophy of Spinoza 60 

The Red and the Black 157 

Tristram Shandy 147 

Married 2 

Dame Care 23 

The Song of Songs 162 

Lives of the Twelve Caesars 18 

Gulliver's Travels, A Tale of a Tr . The 
Battle of the Books 100 

Poems 23 

The Life of Michelangelo 49 

Rothschild's Fiddle, etc. 31 

Sea Gull, Cherry Orchard, Three Sis- 
ters, etc. 171 

Complete Poems 38 

Anna Karenina 37 

Redemption and Other Plays 77 

The Death of Ivan llyitch and Fout 
Other Stories 64 

The Sea and The Jungle 99 

Fathers and Sons 21 

Smoke 80 

Ancient Man 105 

Peter Whiffle 164 

Poems 58 

Candide 47 

Fortitude 178 

Ann Veronica 27 

32 Reproductions 150 

Leaves of Grass 97 

An Ideal Husband, A Woman of No 
Importance 84 

De Profundis 117 

Dorian Gray I 

Poems 19 

Fairy Tales, Poems in Prose 61 

Salome, The Importance of Being 
Earnest, etc. 83 

The Cabala 155 

Mrs. Dalloway 96 

Irish Fairy and Folk Tales 44 

The Medici 179 

Nana 14a 



